netdev - Re: Crash when receiving FIN-ACK in TCP_FIN

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:   Mon, 21 Oct 2019 21:28:25 -0400
From:   Neal Cardwell <ncardwell@...gle.com>
To:     Subash Abhinov Kasiviswanathan <subashab@...eaurora.org>
Cc:     Netdev <netdev@...r.kernel.org>, Yuchung Cheng <ycheng@...gle.com>,
        Eric Dumazet <eric.dumazet@...il.com>
Subject: Re: Crash when receiving FIN-ACK in TCP_FIN_WAIT1 state

On Mon, Oct 21, 2019 at 8:04 PM Subash Abhinov Kasiviswanathan
<subashab@...eaurora.org> wrote:
>
> > Interesting! As tcp_input.c summarizes, "packets_out is
> > SND.NXT-SND.UNA counted in packets". In the normal operation of a
> > socket, tp->packets_out should not be 0 if any of those other fields
> > are non-zero.
> >
> > The tcp_write_queue_purge() function sets packets_out to 0:
> >
> >
> > https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/davem/net-next.git/tree/net/ipv4/tcp.c?h=v4.19#n2526
> >
> > So the execution of tcp_write_queue_purge()  before this point is one
> > way for the socket to end up in this weird state.
> >
>
> In one of the instances, the values are tp->snd_nxt = 1016118098,
> tp->snd_una = 1016047820
>
> tp->mss_cache = 1378
>
> I assume the number of outstanding segments should be
> (tp->snd_nxt - tp->snd_una)/tp->mss_cache = 51

That would be a good expectation if all the packets were full-sized.

> tp->packets_out = 0 and tp->sacked_out = 158 in this case.

OK, thanks. It could be that sacked_out is reasonable and some of the
packets were not full-sized. But, as discussed above, typically the
packets_out should not be 0 if sacked_out is non-zero (with at least
the exception of the tcp_write_queue_purge()  case).

> >> > Yes, one guess would be that somehow the skbs in the retransmit queue
> >> > have been freed, but tp->sacked_out is still non-zero and
> >> > tp->highest_sack is still a dangling pointer into one of those freed
> >> > skbs. The tcp_write_queue_purge() function is one function that fees
> >> > the skbs in the retransmit queue and leaves tp->sacked_out as non-zero
> >> > and  tp->highest_sack as a dangling pointer to a freed skb, AFAICT, so
> >> > that's why I'm wondering about that function. I can't think of a
> >> > specific sequence of events that would involve tcp_write_queue_purge()
> >> > and then a socket that's still in FIN-WAIT1. Maybe I'm not being
> >> > creative enough, or maybe that guess is on the wrong track. Would you
> >> > be able to set a new bit in the tcp_sock in tcp_write_queue_purge()
> >> > and log it in your instrumentation point, to see if
> >> > tcp_write_queue_purge()  was called for these connections that cause
> >> > this crash?
>
> I've queued up a build which logs calls to tcp_write_queue_purge and
> clears tp->highest_sack and tp->sacked_out. I will let you know how
> it fares by end of week.

OK, thanks. That should be a useful data point.

cheers,
neal