netdev - Re: [PATCH v3 1/2] net/handshake: Create a NETLINK service for handling handshake requests

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Date:   Fri, 10 Feb 2023 16:21:26 +0100
From:   Paolo Abeni <pabeni@...hat.com>
To:     Chuck Lever III <chuck.lever@...cle.com>
Cc:     Jakub Kicinski <kuba@...nel.org>,
        Eric Dumazet <edumazet@...gle.com>,
        "open list:NETWORKING [GENERAL]" <netdev@...r.kernel.org>,
        "hare@...e.com" <hare@...e.com>,
        David Howells <dhowells@...hat.com>,
        Benjamin Coddington <bcodding@...hat.com>,
        Olga Kornievskaia <kolga@...app.com>,
        "jmeneghi@...hat.com" <jmeneghi@...hat.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v3 1/2] net/handshake: Create a NETLINK service for
 handling handshake requests

On Fri, 2023-02-10 at 14:31 +0000, Chuck Lever III wrote:
> In previous generations of this series, there was an addition
> to Documentation/ that explained how kernel TLS consumers use
> the tls_ handshake API. I can add that back now that things
> are settling down.

That would be useful, thank!

> But maybe you are thinking of some other topics. I'm happy to
> write down whatever is needed, but I'd like suggestions about
> what particular areas would be most helpful.

A reference user-space implementation would be very interesting, too. 

Even a completely "dummy" one for self-tests purpose only could be
useful. 

Speaking of that, at some point we will need some self-tests ;)

> > > > I'm wondering if this approach scales well enough with the number of
> > > > concurrent handshakes: the single list looks like a potential bottle-
> > > > neck.
> > > 
> > > It's not clear how much scaling is needed. I don't have a strong
> > > sense of how frequently a busy storage server will need a handshake,
> > > for instance, but it seems like it would be relatively less frequent
> > > than, say, I/O. Network storage connections are typically long-lived,
> > > unlike http.
> > > 
> > > In terms of scalability, I am a little more concerned about the
> > > handshake_mutex. Maybe that isn't needed since the pending list is
> > > spinlock protected?
> > 
> > Good point. Indeed it looks like that is not needed.
> 
> I will remove the handshake_mutex in v4.
> 
> 
> > > All that said, the single pending list can be replaced easily. It
> > > would be straightforward to move it into struct net, for example.
> > 
> > In the end I don't see a operations needing a full list traversal.
> > handshake_nl_msg_accept walk that, but it stops at netns/proto matching
> > which should be ~always /~very soon in the typical use-case. And as you
> > said it should be easy to avoid even that.
> > 
> > I think it could be useful limiting the number of pending handshake to
> > some maximum, to avoid problems in pathological/malicious scenarios.
> 
> Defending against DoS is sensible. Maybe having a per-net
> maximum of 5 or 10 pending handshakes? handshake_request() can
> return an error code if a handshake is requested while we're
> over that maximum.

I'm wondering if we could use an {r,w}mem based limits, so that the
user-space could eventually tune it as/if needed without any additional
knob.

Cheers,

Paolo