Re: [Question] neighbor entry doesn't switch to the STALE state after the reachable timer expires

[Julian Anastasov]

	Hello,

On Sun, 29 Jan 2023, Zhang Changzhong wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> We got the following weird neighbor cache entry on a machine that's been running for over a year:
> 172.16.1.18 dev bond0 lladdr 0a:0e:0f:01:12:01 ref 1 used 350521/15994171/350520 probes 4 REACHABLE

	confirmed time (15994171) is 13 days in the future, more likely
185 days behind (very outdated), anything above 99 days is invalid

> 350520 seconds have elapsed since this entry was last updated, but it is still in the REACHABLE
> state (base_reachable_time_ms is 30000), preventing lladdr from being updated through probe.
> 
> After some analysis, we found a scenario that may cause such a neighbor entry:
> 
>           Entry used          	  DELAY_PROBE_TIME expired
> NUD_STALE ------------> NUD_DELAY ------------------------> NUD_PROBE
>                             |
>                             | DELAY_PROBE_TIME not expired
>                             v
>                       NUD_REACHABLE
> 
> The neigh_timer_handler() use time_before_eq() to compare 'now' with 'neigh->confirmed +
> NEIGH_VAR(neigh->parms, DELAY_PROBE_TIME)', but time_before_eq() only works if delta < ULONG_MAX/2.
> 
> This means that if an entry stays in the NUD_STALE state for more than ULONG_MAX/2 ticks, it enters
> the NUD_RACHABLE state directly when it is used again and cannot be switched to the NUD_STALE state
> (the timer is set too long).
> 
> On 64-bit machines, ULONG_MAX/2 ticks are a extremely long time, but in my case (32-bit machine and
> kernel compiled with CONFIG_HZ=250), ULONG_MAX/2 ticks are about 99.42 days, which is possible in
> reality.
> 
> Does anyone have a good idea to solve this problem? Or are there other scenarios that might cause
> such a neighbor entry?

	Is the neigh entry modified somehow, for example,
with 'arp -s' or 'ip neigh change' ? Or is bond0 reconfigured
after initial setup? I mean, 4 days ago?

	Looking at __neigh_update, there are few cases that
can assign NUD_STALE without touching neigh->confirmed:
lladdr = neigh->ha should be called, NEIGH_UPDATE_F_ADMIN
should be provided. Later, as you explain, it can wrongly
switch to NUD_REACHABLE state for long time.

	May be there should be some measures to keep
neigh->confirmed valid during admin modifications.

	What is the kernel version?

Regards

--
Julian Anastasov <ja@xxxxxx>