netdev - Re: [PATCH v3 net-next 3/3] openvswitch: Fix skb->protocol for vlan frames.

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Date:   Sun, 4 Dec 2016 16:58:29 -0800
From:   Pravin Shelar <pshelar@....org>
To:     Jiri Benc <jbenc@...hat.com>
Cc:     Jarno Rajahalme <jarno@....org>,
        Linux Kernel Network Developers <netdev@...r.kernel.org>,
        Eric Garver <e@...g.me>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v3 net-next 3/3] openvswitch: Fix skb->protocol for vlan frames.

On Fri, Dec 2, 2016 at 1:42 AM, Jiri Benc <jbenc@...hat.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 1 Dec 2016 12:31:09 -0800, Pravin Shelar wrote:
>> On Wed, Nov 30, 2016 at 6:30 AM, Jiri Benc <jbenc@...hat.com> wrote:
>> > I'm not opposed to changing this but I'm afraid it needs much deeper
>> > review. Because with this in place, no core kernel functions that
>> > depend on skb->protocol may be called from within openvswitch.
>> >
>> Can you give specific example where it does not work?
>
> I can't, I haven't reviewed the usage. I'm just saying that the stack
> does not expect skb->protocol being ETH_P_8021Q for e.g. IPv4 packets.
> It may not be relevant for the calls used by openvswitch but we should
> be sure about that. Especially defragmentation and conntrack is worth
> looking at.
>
> Again, I'm not saying this is wrong nor that there is an actual
> problem. I'm just pointing out that openvswitch has different
> expectations about skb wrt. vlans than the rest of the kernel and we
> should be reasonably sure the behavior is correct when passing between
> the two.
>
I agree that conntrack does not expect skb-protocol to be vlan
protocol. We could accelerate vlan if there is vlan header in packet
itself. That would make the packet consistent across upcalls.

>> skb-protocol value is set by the caller, so it should not be
>> arbitrary. is it missing in any case?
>
> It's not set exactly by the caller, because that's what this patch is
> removing. It is set by whoever handed over the packet to openvswitch.
> The point is we don't know *what* it is set to. It may as well be
> ETH_P_8021Q, breaking the conditions here. It should not happen in
> practice but still, it seems weird to depend on the fact that the
> packet coming to ovs has never skb->protocol equal to ETH_P_8021Q nor
> ETH_P_8021AD.
>

We are kind of dependent on this atleast for L3 packets injected back
by vswitchd. For rest of entry points I think we have to trust the
networking stack would set skb-protocol to correct value. If that is
not true in some case, it is bug and we will need to fix it.