[RFC net-next] pppoe: remove session socket receive support

From: Qingfang Deng

Date: Thu Aug 06 2026 - 05:17:01 EST


No known userspace PPPoE implementation reads from an AF_PPPOX
socket. In particular, pppd uses the socket only to establish a
session and obtain a generic PPP channel with PPPIOCGCHAN. Packet I/O
then uses /dev/ppp.

Before this change, packets received before PPPIOCGCHAN set
PPPOX_BOUND were queued on sk_receive_queue. Since no known
implementation consumed them, they remained there until socket
destruction and unnecessarily consumed memory.

Pass every matched session packet directly to ppp_input(). On a
successful connect, the channel is registered before the socket lock
is released. Generic PPP can therefore queue early packets until
userspace attaches /dev/ppp, preserving packets that arrive between
connect() and PPPIOCGCHAN.

Replace pppoe_recvmsg() with sock_no_recvmsg(). Like PPTP, omit the
poll callback because the socket no longer receives packets. Remove
pppoe_destruct() because the receive queue is no longer used.

Assisted-by: Codex:GPT-5.6
Signed-off-by: Qingfang Deng <qingfang.deng@xxxxxxxxx>
---
drivers/net/ppp/pppoe.c | 50 ++---------------------------------------
1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 48 deletions(-)

diff --git a/drivers/net/ppp/pppoe.c b/drivers/net/ppp/pppoe.c
index bf7414b46a26..e3d425943c76 100644
--- a/drivers/net/ppp/pppoe.c
+++ b/drivers/net/ppp/pppoe.c
@@ -350,23 +350,9 @@ static int pppoe_rcv_core(struct sock *sk, struct sk_buff *skb)
{
struct pppox_sock *po = pppox_sk(sk);

- /* Backlog receive. Semantics of backlog rcv preclude any code from
- * executing in lock_sock()/release_sock() bounds; meaning sk->sk_state
- * can't change.
- */
-
- if (sk->sk_state & PPPOX_BOUND) {
- ppp_input(&po->chan, skb);
- } else {
- if (sock_queue_rcv_skb(sk, skb))
- goto abort_kfree;
- }
+ ppp_input(&po->chan, skb);

return NET_RX_SUCCESS;
-
-abort_kfree:
- kfree_skb(skb);
- return NET_RX_DROP;
}

/************************************************************************
@@ -498,11 +484,6 @@ static struct proto pppoe_sk_proto __read_mostly = {
.obj_size = sizeof(struct pppox_sock),
};

-static void pppoe_destruct(struct sock *sk)
-{
- skb_queue_purge(&sk->sk_receive_queue);
-}
-
/***********************************************************************
*
* Initialize a new struct sock.
@@ -523,7 +504,6 @@ static int pppoe_create(struct net *net, struct socket *sock, int kern)
sock->ops = &pppoe_ops;

sk->sk_backlog_rcv = pppoe_rcv_core;
- sk->sk_destruct = pppoe_destruct;
sk->sk_state = PPPOX_NONE;
sk->sk_type = SOCK_STREAM;
sk->sk_family = PF_PPPOX;
@@ -921,31 +901,6 @@ static const struct ppp_channel_ops pppoe_chan_ops = {
.fill_forward_path = pppoe_fill_forward_path,
};

-static int pppoe_recvmsg(struct socket *sock, struct msghdr *m,
- size_t total_len, int flags)
-{
- struct sock *sk = sock->sk;
- struct sk_buff *skb;
- int error = 0;
-
- if (sk->sk_state & PPPOX_BOUND)
- return -EIO;
-
- skb = skb_recv_datagram(sk, flags, &error);
- if (!skb)
- return error;
-
- total_len = min_t(size_t, total_len, skb->len);
- error = skb_copy_datagram_msg(skb, 0, m, total_len);
- if (error == 0) {
- consume_skb(skb);
- return total_len;
- }
-
- kfree_skb(skb);
- return error;
-}
-
#ifdef CONFIG_PROC_FS
static int pppoe_seq_show(struct seq_file *seq, void *v)
{
@@ -1046,11 +1001,10 @@ static const struct proto_ops pppoe_ops = {
.socketpair = sock_no_socketpair,
.accept = sock_no_accept,
.getname = pppoe_getname,
- .poll = datagram_poll,
.listen = sock_no_listen,
.shutdown = sock_no_shutdown,
.sendmsg = pppoe_sendmsg,
- .recvmsg = pppoe_recvmsg,
+ .recvmsg = sock_no_recvmsg,
.mmap = sock_no_mmap,
.ioctl = pppox_ioctl,
#ifdef CONFIG_COMPAT
--
2.43.0