[PATCH 1/1] bonding: crypto offload enabled, non-offload slave failover, rekey failed

From: David Dai

Date: Thu Sep 03 2026 - 18:02:00 EST


Create a bonding device (i.e. bond0) in active-backup mode, 2 slaves.
Active slave: offload capable interface (i.e. eth1), primary interface.
Backup slave: non-offload capable interface(i.e. eth2).
Configure strongswan service swantl.conf child SA "hw_offload = crypto"
Start strongswan service
IPSec Crytpo Offload is enabled on top of bond0. i.e.
ip xfrm state |grep offload
crypto offload parameters: dev bond0 dir out mode crypto
crypto offload parameters: dev bond0 dir in mode crypto

Active slave eth1 takes adavantage of IPSec Crypto Offload capability.

If active slave eth1 is down for any reason (i.e. eth1 link down):
ip link set down dev eth1
non-offload capable interface eth2 failover to becomes active slave.
The existing SAs can continue use software IPsec after failover.
Traffic still keeps going properly.

However if eth1 link had not recovered yet, strongswan service does
new child SA rekey, or uses swanctl command to do new child SA rekey,
it will fail because active slave eth2 doesn't support crypto offload.
In bond_ipsec_add_sa routine, it returns -EINVAL now, which is
treated as fatal error by xfrm_dev_state_add routine in kernel xfrm.

To make the non-offload active slave survive the child SA rekey, need
to make bond_ipsec_add_sa routine returns -EOPNOTSUPP instead when
active slave doesn't support IPsec Crypto offload, the xfrm will
gracefully fallback to create new SA using Software IPsec.
Network traffic can keep going.

After offload capable interface eth1 link is up, becomes active slave,
next time strongswan child SA rekey will create a new SA which enables
crypto offload again.

This way, network traffic is never interrupted, always keeps going.

Signed-off-by: David Dai <zdai@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Tested-by: David Dai <zdai@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
drivers/net/bonding/bond_main.c | 2 +-
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/drivers/net/bonding/bond_main.c b/drivers/net/bonding/bond_main.c
index ef9eb0c53c66..79fc892dab07 100644
--- a/drivers/net/bonding/bond_main.c
+++ b/drivers/net/bonding/bond_main.c
@@ -490,7 +490,7 @@ static int bond_ipsec_add_sa(struct net_device *bond_dev,
!real_dev->xfrmdev_ops->xdo_dev_state_add ||
netif_is_bond_master(real_dev)) {
NL_SET_ERR_MSG_MOD(extack, "Slave does not support ipsec offload");
- err = -EINVAL;
+ err = -EOPNOTSUPP;
goto out;
}

--
2.55.0