Re: [PATCH net v4 0/7] more virtio-net csum hardening

From: Chris Arges

Date: Wed Oct 21 2026 - 14:51:52 EST


On 2026-10-21 03:50:20, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> v4 and I'm pretty tired of this family of issues.
>
> Willem suggested more cleanups, but I don't think I will
> be able to dedicate much more time to this, there's a pile of
> fixes I queued that need to get tested and go into rc2, and a bunch
> of qemu features that need review.
>
> Hopefully if any changes are required this can be done by patches on
> top, or if someone wants to take over this, very welcome.
>

Happy to help if needed.
Again, I was able to test this patchset minus the UM portions and verify
that it fixes my tests.

--chris

> ------
>
> As reported first by Paulos Yibelo <habte.yibelo@xxxxxxxxx> (after which
> others, credited below, found more ways the bug can affect users):
>
> allowing untrusted hardware to specify csum start/offset for
> CHECKSUM_PARTIAL was not a good idea, because, if it edits the packet
> outside the actual checksum, and depending on the setup, the networking
> stack could be looking at the packet both before and after the edit, and
> seeing different results.
>
> Previously, commit 6785011f8b16 ("ipv4: validate checksum_start before
> completing checksum") validated all known instances where this
> causes the most grief, but the real fix is to make sure
> that either only actual checksum fields are ever edited,
> or the checksum is completed before the net stack looks at it,
> so it is always consistent.
>
>
> This basically goes back to
> what we did before f43798c27684 ("tun: Allow GSO using virtio_net_hdr"),
> except in a narrow list of specified known good cases.
>
>
> Summary of the patchset:
>
> These are probabably net material (and seem to be too big for stable,
> or I would recommend backporting there, too):
>
> net: account for ingress-resolved virtio net hdr state
> - accounting, not the fix itself, dependency of the fix
> um: vector: trim skbs before verifying the header
> - fixes the um receive path: without it the checksum would be
> completed over the unreceived tail of the buffer
> virtio_net: parse tunnel csum_start little-endian
> - bugfix, a dependency of validating the header
> net: resolve uncommon partial checksums at ingress
> - fix itself
> net: add a sysctl to opt out of virtio net hdr checksum validation
> - reducing risk of the fix by adding a sysctl to disable it
>
> These are cleanups, can be deferred to net-next, too:
>
> net: add ip4_parse()
> virtio_net: cleanup protocol calculation
> - cleanup resulting code duplication
> (kept separate to simplify backporting)
>
> Fixes: f43798c27684 ("tun: Allow GSO using virtio_net_hdr")
>
> Changes since v1:
> - reorder patches to fix bisectability, addressing
> a comment by Björn Töpel.
> - code refactoring, different patch splitup,
> a sysctl knob to disable as suggested by Willem de Bruijn.
> - fix a bunch of minor issues spotted by LLMs
>
>
> Changes since v2:
>
> virtio_net: parse tunnel csum_start little-endian
> - new patch. correctly parsing the header is a dependency
> of validating it, otherwise i do not know what to validate
>
> net: account for ingress-resolved virtio net hdr state
> - make rx_csum_sw counter 64 bit so it won't wrap
> (spotted by LLM review)
>
> net: resolve uncommon partial checksums at ingress
> - tunnel fixes to bugs noticed by Willem de Bruijn and
> Chris Arges
> - restore the csum_offset checks as suggested by Willem
>
> net: add a sysctl to opt out of virtio net hdr checksum validation
> - the knob is no longer writable by root inside a user
> namespace: changing it now requires capable(CAP_NET_ADMIN)
> suggested by Willem de Bruijn
>
> net: add ip4_parse()
> - comment converted to kernel-doc format (Willem de Bruijn)
>
> um: vector: trim skbs before verifying the header
> - new patch, found by code review
>
>
> Changes since v3:
>
> net: account for ingress-resolved virtio net hdr state
> - um: vector: honor virtio net hdr conversion failures
> folded in (Björn Töpel)
> - count on tap and virtio_net, too (Willem de Bruijn)
>
> net: resolve uncommon partial checksums at ingress
> - walk the frame on loopback, too: loopback_xmit() runs
> eth_type_trans() on it (Willem de Bruijn)
> - return the mismatch handling directly, GSO is implied in
> the tunnel path so drop there outright, and fold the helper
> into its one remaining caller (Willem de Bruijn)
> - read the IP version through struct iphdr (Willem de Bruijn)
> - document the ipv6_find_hdr() flags choice
>
> net: add a sysctl to opt out of virtio net hdr checksum validation
> - renamed to virtio_net_hdr_validate, in case more validation
> is gated by the same knob later (Willem de Bruijn)
> - point .data at the value like the neighboring entries,
> the per-netns registration rebases it, and the handler reads
> the value directly - no ctl_table copy (Björn Töpel,
> Willem de Bruijn)
> - check the opt-out before parsing: with the knob off, packets
> the parser cannot handle were still dropped (Willem de Bruijn)
> - include virtio_net.h in net/core/dev.c so the static key
> definition sees its declaration (build warning reported by
> Jakub Kicinski)
>
> net: add ip4_parse()
> - add the missing kernel-doc Return: section
> (Jakub Kicinski)
>
> Tested: full suite on the final tree, tunnel included.
> um part compiled only.
>
>
> Michael S. Tsirkin (7):
> net: account for ingress-resolved virtio net hdr state
> um: vector: trim skbs before verifying the header
> virtio_net: parse tunnel csum_start little-endian
> net: resolve uncommon partial checksums at ingress
> net: add a sysctl to opt out of virtio net hdr checksum validation
> net: add ip4_parse()
> virtio_net: cleanup protocol calculation
>
> Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/net.rst | 19 +++
> arch/um/drivers/vector_kern.c | 6 +-
> arch/um/drivers/vector_transports.c | 4 +-
> drivers/net/ipvlan/ipvtap.c | 36 ++++
> drivers/net/macvtap.c | 36 ++++
> drivers/net/tap.c | 8 +-
> drivers/net/tun.c | 41 ++++-
> drivers/net/virtio_net.c | 14 +-
> include/linux/if_tap.h | 1 +
> include/linux/ip.h | 30 ++++
> include/linux/virtio_net.h | 279 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
> include/net/netns/core.h | 1 +
> net/bridge/br_netfilter_hooks.c | 15 +-
> net/core/dev.c | 7 +
> net/core/net_namespace.c | 1 +
> net/core/sysctl_net_core.c | 50 ++++++
> net/ipv4/ip_input.c | 13 +-
> net/ipv4/netfilter/nf_reject_ipv4.c | 13 +-
> net/packet/af_packet.c | 4 +-
> 19 files changed, 533 insertions(+), 45 deletions(-)
>
> --
> MST
>