[PATCH 4.14 55/61] tcp: fix early ETIMEDOUT after spurious non-SACK RTO

From: Greg Kroah-Hartman
Date: Tue Sep 13 2022 - 11:27:13 EST


From: Neal Cardwell <ncardwell@xxxxxxxxxx>

[ Upstream commit 686dc2db2a0fdc1d34b424ec2c0a735becd8d62b ]

Fix a bug reported and analyzed by Nagaraj Arankal, where the handling
of a spurious non-SACK RTO could cause a connection to fail to clear
retrans_stamp, causing a later RTO to very prematurely time out the
connection with ETIMEDOUT.

Here is the buggy scenario, expanding upon Nagaraj Arankal's excellent
report:

(*1) Send one data packet on a non-SACK connection

(*2) Because no ACK packet is received, the packet is retransmitted
and we enter CA_Loss; but this retransmission is spurious.

(*3) The ACK for the original data is received. The transmitted packet
is acknowledged. The TCP timestamp is before the retrans_stamp,
so tcp_may_undo() returns true, and tcp_try_undo_loss() returns
true without changing state to Open (because tcp_is_sack() is
false), and tcp_process_loss() returns without calling
tcp_try_undo_recovery(). Normally after undoing a CA_Loss
episode, tcp_fastretrans_alert() would see that the connection
has returned to CA_Open and fall through and call
tcp_try_to_open(), which would set retrans_stamp to 0. However,
for non-SACK connections we hold the connection in CA_Loss, so do
not fall through to call tcp_try_to_open() and do not set
retrans_stamp to 0. So retrans_stamp is (erroneously) still
non-zero.

At this point the first "retransmission event" has passed and
been recovered from. Any future retransmission is a completely
new "event". However, retrans_stamp is erroneously still
set. (And we are still in CA_Loss, which is correct.)

(*4) After 16 minutes (to correspond with tcp_retries2=15), a new data
packet is sent. Note: No data is transmitted between (*3) and
(*4) and we disabled keep alives.

The socket's timeout SHOULD be calculated from this point in
time, but instead it's calculated from the prior "event" 16
minutes ago (step (*2)).

(*5) Because no ACK packet is received, the packet is retransmitted.

(*6) At the time of the 2nd retransmission, the socket returns
ETIMEDOUT, prematurely, because retrans_stamp is (erroneously)
too far in the past (set at the time of (*2)).

This commit fixes this bug by ensuring that we reuse in
tcp_try_undo_loss() the same careful logic for non-SACK connections
that we have in tcp_try_undo_recovery(). To avoid duplicating logic,
we factor out that logic into a new
tcp_is_non_sack_preventing_reopen() helper and call that helper from
both undo functions.

Fixes: da34ac7626b5 ("tcp: only undo on partial ACKs in CA_Loss")
Reported-by: Nagaraj Arankal <nagaraj.p.arankal@xxxxxxx>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/SJ0PR84MB1847BE6C24D274C46A1B9B0EB27A9@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/
Signed-off-by: Neal Cardwell <ncardwell@xxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Yuchung Cheng <ycheng@xxxxxxxxxx>
Reviewed-by: Eric Dumazet <edumazet@xxxxxxxxxx>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20220903121023.866900-1-ncardwell.kernel@xxxxxxxxx
Signed-off-by: Paolo Abeni <pabeni@xxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin <sashal@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
net/ipv4/tcp_input.c | 25 ++++++++++++++++++-------
1 file changed, 18 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)

diff --git a/net/ipv4/tcp_input.c b/net/ipv4/tcp_input.c
index 906d26794d007..c6d49ec38a56a 100644
--- a/net/ipv4/tcp_input.c
+++ b/net/ipv4/tcp_input.c
@@ -2425,6 +2425,21 @@ static inline bool tcp_may_undo(const struct tcp_sock *tp)
return tp->undo_marker && (!tp->undo_retrans || tcp_packet_delayed(tp));
}

+static bool tcp_is_non_sack_preventing_reopen(struct sock *sk)
+{
+ struct tcp_sock *tp = tcp_sk(sk);
+
+ if (tp->snd_una == tp->high_seq && tcp_is_reno(tp)) {
+ /* Hold old state until something *above* high_seq
+ * is ACKed. For Reno it is MUST to prevent false
+ * fast retransmits (RFC2582). SACK TCP is safe. */
+ if (!tcp_any_retrans_done(sk))
+ tp->retrans_stamp = 0;
+ return true;
+ }
+ return false;
+}
+
/* People celebrate: "We love our President!" */
static bool tcp_try_undo_recovery(struct sock *sk)
{
@@ -2445,14 +2460,8 @@ static bool tcp_try_undo_recovery(struct sock *sk)

NET_INC_STATS(sock_net(sk), mib_idx);
}
- if (tp->snd_una == tp->high_seq && tcp_is_reno(tp)) {
- /* Hold old state until something *above* high_seq
- * is ACKed. For Reno it is MUST to prevent false
- * fast retransmits (RFC2582). SACK TCP is safe. */
- if (!tcp_any_retrans_done(sk))
- tp->retrans_stamp = 0;
+ if (tcp_is_non_sack_preventing_reopen(sk))
return true;
- }
tcp_set_ca_state(sk, TCP_CA_Open);
tp->is_sack_reneg = 0;
return false;
@@ -2486,6 +2495,8 @@ static bool tcp_try_undo_loss(struct sock *sk, bool frto_undo)
NET_INC_STATS(sock_net(sk),
LINUX_MIB_TCPSPURIOUSRTOS);
inet_csk(sk)->icsk_retransmits = 0;
+ if (tcp_is_non_sack_preventing_reopen(sk))
+ return true;
if (frto_undo || tcp_is_sack(tp)) {
tcp_set_ca_state(sk, TCP_CA_Open);
tp->is_sack_reneg = 0;
--
2.35.1