[PATCH net] bonding: use permanent address for MAC swapping if device address is same

From: Hangbin Liu
Date: Wed Mar 19 2025 - 04:10:27 EST


Similar with a951bc1e6ba5 ("bonding: correct the MAC address for "follow"
fail_over_mac policy"). The fail_over_mac follow mode requires the formerly
active slave to swap MAC addresses with the newly active slave during
failover. However, the slave's MAC address can be same under certain
conditions:

1) ip link set eth0 master bond0
bond0 adopts eth0's MAC address (MAC0).

1) ip link set eth1 master bond0
eth1 is added as a backup with its own MAC (MAC1).

3) ip link set eth0 nomaster
eth0 is released and restores its MAC (MAC0).
eth1 becomes the active slave, and bond0 assigns MAC0 to eth1.

4) ip link set eth0 master bond0
eth0 is re-added to bond0, but both eth0 and eth1 now have MAC0,
breaking the follow policy.

To resolve this issue, we need to swap the new active slave’s permanent
MAC address with the old one. The new active slave then uses the old
dev_addr, ensuring that it matches the bond address. After the fix:

5) ip link set bond0 type bond active_slave eth0
dev_addr is the same, swap old active eth1's MAC (MAC0) with eth0.
Swap new active eth0's permanent MAC (MAC0) to eth1.
MAC addresses remain unchanged.

6) ip link set bond0 type bond active_slave eth1
dev_addr is the same, swap the old active eth0's MAC (MAC0) with eth1.
Swap new active eth1's permanent MAC (MAC1) to eth0.
The MAC addresses are now correctly differentiated.

Fixes: 3915c1e8634a ("bonding: Add "follow" option to fail_over_mac")
Reported-by: Liang Li <liali@xxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Hangbin Liu <liuhangbin@xxxxxxxxx>
---
drivers/net/bonding/bond_main.c | 9 +++++++--
include/net/bonding.h | 8 ++++++++
2 files changed, 15 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/drivers/net/bonding/bond_main.c b/drivers/net/bonding/bond_main.c
index e45bba240cbc..9cc2348d4ee9 100644
--- a/drivers/net/bonding/bond_main.c
+++ b/drivers/net/bonding/bond_main.c
@@ -1107,8 +1107,13 @@ static void bond_do_fail_over_mac(struct bonding *bond,
old_active = bond_get_old_active(bond, new_active);

if (old_active) {
- bond_hw_addr_copy(tmp_mac, new_active->dev->dev_addr,
- new_active->dev->addr_len);
+ if (bond_hw_addr_equal(old_active->dev->dev_addr, new_active->dev->dev_addr,
+ new_active->dev->addr_len))
+ bond_hw_addr_copy(tmp_mac, new_active->perm_hwaddr,
+ new_active->dev->addr_len);
+ else
+ bond_hw_addr_copy(tmp_mac, new_active->dev->dev_addr,
+ new_active->dev->addr_len);
bond_hw_addr_copy(ss.__data,
old_active->dev->dev_addr,
old_active->dev->addr_len);
diff --git a/include/net/bonding.h b/include/net/bonding.h
index 8bb5f016969f..de965c24dde0 100644
--- a/include/net/bonding.h
+++ b/include/net/bonding.h
@@ -463,6 +463,14 @@ static inline void bond_hw_addr_copy(u8 *dst, const u8 *src, unsigned int len)
memcpy(dst, src, len);
}

+static inline bool bond_hw_addr_equal(const u8 *dst, const u8 *src, unsigned int len)
+{
+ if (len == ETH_ALEN)
+ return ether_addr_equal(dst, src);
+ else
+ return (memcmp(dst, src, len) == 0);
+}
+
#define BOND_PRI_RESELECT_ALWAYS 0
#define BOND_PRI_RESELECT_BETTER 1
#define BOND_PRI_RESELECT_FAILURE 2
--
2.46.0