Re: [PATCH v2] net: neigh: disallow transition to NUD_STALE if lladdr is unchanged in neigh_update()

[Julian Anastasov]

	Hello,

On Tue, 26 Jul 2016, Chunhui He wrote:

> NUD_STALE is used when the caller(e.g. arp_process()) can't guarantee
> neighbour reachability. If the entry was NUD_VALID and lladdr is unchanged,
> the entry state should not be changed.
> 
> Currently the code puts an extra "NUD_CONNECTED" condition. So if old state
> was NUD_DELAY or NUD_PROBE (they are NUD_VALID but not NUD_CONNECTED), the
> state can be changed to NUD_STALE.
> 
> This may cause problem. Because NUD_STALE lladdr doesn't guarantee
> reachability, when we send traffic, the state will be changed to
> NUD_DELAY. In normal case, if we get no confirmation (by dst_confirm()),
> we will change the state to NUD_PROBE and send probe traffic. But now the
> state may be reset to NUD_STALE again(e.g. by broadcast ARP packets),
> so the probe traffic will not be sent. This situation may happen again and
> again, and packets will be sent to an non-reachable lladdr forever.
> 
> The fix is to remove the "NUD_CONNECTED" condition. After that the
> "NEIGH_UPDATE_F_WEAK_OVERRIDE" condition (used by IPv6) in that branch will
> be redundant, so remove it.
> 
> This change may increase probe traffic, but it's essential since NUD_STALE
> lladdr is unreliable. To ensure correctness, we prefer to resolve lladdr,
> when we can't get confirmation, even while remote packets try to set
> NUD_STALE state.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Chunhui He <hchunhui@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

	Looks good to me,

Signed-off-by: Julian Anastasov <ja@xxxxxx>

> ---
> v2:
>  - change title from "net: neigh: disallow state transition DELAY->STALE in
>    neigh_update()"
>  - remove "NUD_CONNECTED" condition instead of "NUD_CONNECTED | NUD_DELAY"
>  - remove "NEIGH_UPDATE_F_WEAK_OVERRIDE" condition
> 
> ---
>  net/core/neighbour.c | 7 +------
>  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 6 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/net/core/neighbour.c b/net/core/neighbour.c
> index 510cd62..ed8c317e 100644
> --- a/net/core/neighbour.c
> +++ b/net/core/neighbour.c
> @@ -1060,8 +1060,6 @@ static void neigh_update_hhs(struct neighbour *neigh)
>  	NEIGH_UPDATE_F_WEAK_OVERRIDE will suspect existing "connected"
>  				lladdr instead of overriding it
>  				if it is different.
> -				It also allows to retain current state
> -				if lladdr is unchanged.
>  	NEIGH_UPDATE_F_ADMIN	means that the change is administrative.
>  
>  	NEIGH_UPDATE_F_OVERRIDE_ISROUTER allows to override existing
> @@ -1150,10 +1148,7 @@ int neigh_update(struct neighbour *neigh, const u8 *lladdr, u8 new,
>  			} else
>  				goto out;
>  		} else {
> -			if (lladdr == neigh->ha && new == NUD_STALE &&
> -			    ((flags & NEIGH_UPDATE_F_WEAK_OVERRIDE) ||
> -			     (old & NUD_CONNECTED))
> -			    )
> +			if (lladdr == neigh->ha && new == NUD_STALE)
>  				new = old;
>  		}
>  	}
> -- 
> 2.1.4

Regards

--
Julian Anastasov <ja@xxxxxx>