Re: Bonding on bond

Le 19/01/2011 16:49, Jiri Bohac a écrit :

On Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 09:07:20AM +0100, Nicolas de Pesloüan wrote:

quoted

Staking bond is not supported. Currently, no setup is know to
require stacking bond.

I agree. This question and weird bugreports from people trying
this come up over and over. How about this patch?

Why not. Adding this to the documentation should also help.

Even if it is possible to test for slave and for master with a single condition (IFF_BONDING), I suggest to split the tests and the error messages, to give end user the best possible diagnostic.

If the device is already a master, let's say it.
If the device is already enslaved, let's continue to say it. It might even be better to give the name of the other master that already own this slave.

 		return -EBUSY;
 	}



--
Jiri Bohac [off-list ref]
SUSE Labs, SUSE CZ

On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 09:33:19PM +0100, Nicolas de Pesloüan wrote:

Even if it is possible to test for slave and for master with a
single condition (IFF_BONDING), I suggest to split the tests and the
error messages, to give end user the best possible diagnostic.

OK, why not. The below patch still uses IFF_BONDING to detect a
master is being enslaved, because IFF_MASTER is also used by the
eql driver. No idea if it works / someone ever uses it with
bonding, but it might collide.

bonding: prohibit enslaving of bonding masters

Nested bonding is not supported and will result in strange problems, e.g.:
- netif_receive_skb() will not properly change skb->dev to point to the
  uppoer-most bonding master
- arp monitor will not work (dev->last_rx is only updated by hardware drivers)
- accidentally enslaving a bonding master to itself will cause an infinite
  recursion in the TX path

This patch prevents this by prohibiting a bonding master from being further enslaved.

Signed-off-by: Jiri Bohac <redacted>

diff --git a/drivers/net/bonding/bond_main.c b/drivers/net/bonding/bond_main.c
index b1025b8..b117dd8 100644
--- a/drivers/net/bonding/bond_main.c
+++ b/drivers/net/bonding/bond_main.c

@@ -1453,6 +1453,12 @@ int bond_enslave(struct net_device *bond_dev, struct net_device *slave_dev)
 		return -EBUSY;
 	}
 
+	/* cannot enslave a master */
+	if (slave_dev->priv_flags & IFF_BONDING) {
+		pr_debug("Error, cannot enslave a bonding master\n");
+		return -EBUSY;
+	}
+
 	/* vlan challenged mutual exclusion */
 	/* no need to lock since we're protected by rtnl_lock */
 	if (slave_dev->features & NETIF_F_VLAN_CHALLENGED) {

-- 
Jiri Bohac <jbohac@suse.cz>
SUSE Labs, SUSE CZ

Le 20/01/2011 16:31, Jiri Bohac a écrit :

On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 09:33:19PM +0100, Nicolas de Pesloüan wrote:

quoted

Even if it is possible to test for slave and for master with a
single condition (IFF_BONDING), I suggest to split the tests and the
error messages, to give end user the best possible diagnostic.

OK, why not. The below patch still uses IFF_BONDING to detect a
master is being enslaved, because IFF_MASTER is also used by the
eql driver. No idea if it works / someone ever uses it with
bonding, but it might collide.

Thanks Jiri.

bonding: prohibit enslaving of bonding masters

Nested bonding is not supported and will result in strange problems, e.g.:
- netif_receive_skb() will not properly change skb->dev to point to the
   uppoer-most bonding master
- arp monitor will not work (dev->last_rx is only updated by hardware drivers)
- accidentally enslaving a bonding master to itself will cause an infinite
   recursion in the TX path

This patch prevents this by prohibiting a bonding master from being further enslaved.

Signed-off-by: Jiri Bohac<redacted>

Reviewed-by: Nicolas de Pesloüan <redacted>

Nicolas de Pesloüan 	[off-list ref] wrote:

Le 20/01/2011 16:31, Jiri Bohac a écrit :

quoted

On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 09:33:19PM +0100, Nicolas de Pesloüan wrote:

quoted

Even if it is possible to test for slave and for master with a
single condition (IFF_BONDING), I suggest to split the tests and the
error messages, to give end user the best possible diagnostic.

OK, why not. The below patch still uses IFF_BONDING to detect a
master is being enslaved, because IFF_MASTER is also used by the
eql driver. No idea if it works / someone ever uses it with
bonding, but it might collide.

Thanks Jiri.

quoted

bonding: prohibit enslaving of bonding masters

Nested bonding is not supported and will result in strange problems, e.g.:
- netif_receive_skb() will not properly change skb->dev to point to the
   uppoer-most bonding master
- arp monitor will not work (dev->last_rx is only updated by hardware drivers)
- accidentally enslaving a bonding master to itself will cause an infinite
   recursion in the TX path

	Did you test these?  I'm curious about the ARP monitor
assertion, because last_rx is updated by bonding itself now (in
skb_bond_should_drop), not in the device drivers.

	I'm in agreement that, by and large, nesting of bonds is
pointless.  However, I suspect that there are users out in the world who
are happily doing so, and this patch may shut them down.

	I've not tested with nesting in a while; I know it used to work
(at least for limited cases, typically an active-backup bond with a pair
of balance-xor or balance-rr or sometimes 802.3ad enslaved to it), but
has never really been a deliberate feature.  Is nesting now utterly
broken, as suggested by the list of problems above?

quoted

This patch prevents this by prohibiting a bonding master from being further enslaved.

Signed-off-by: Jiri Bohac<redacted>

Reviewed-by: Nicolas de Pesloüan <redacted>

	If nesting really doesn't work and is going to be disabled, then
at a minimum it should also have an update to the documentation
explaining this.

	-J

quoted

diff --git a/drivers/net/bonding/bond_main.c b/drivers/net/bonding/bond_main.c
index b1025b8..b117dd8 100644
--- a/drivers/net/bonding/bond_main.c
+++ b/drivers/net/bonding/bond_main.c

@@ -1453,6 +1453,12 @@ int bond_enslave(struct net_device *bond_dev, struct net_device *slave_dev)
  		return -EBUSY;
  	}

+	/* cannot enslave a master */
+	if (slave_dev->priv_flags&  IFF_BONDING) {
+		pr_debug("Error, cannot enslave a bonding master\n");
+		return -EBUSY;
+	}
+
  	/* vlan challenged mutual exclusion */
  	/* no need to lock since we're protected by rtnl_lock */
  	if (slave_dev->features&  NETIF_F_VLAN_CHALLENGED) {

---
	-Jay Vosburgh, IBM Linux Technology Center, fubar@us.ibm.com

Le 20/01/2011 20:53, Jay Vosburgh a écrit :

	I'm in agreement that, by and large, nesting of bonds is
pointless.  However, I suspect that there are users out in the world who
are happily doing so, and this patch may shut them down.

Hi Jay,

I tested the following nested bonding configuration:

bond1 : eth1 + eth3, in balance-rr mode.
bond2 : eth0 + eth2, in balance-rr mode.
bond0 : bond1 + bond2, in active-backup mode.

The egress path apparently works not so bad, even if I didn't take time yet to check proper load balancing nor fail over.

However, the ingress path doesn't work at all. bond0 is unable to receive any packets (ARP or IP).

It doesn't sound surprising to me, having a look at the current code in __netif_receive_skb() :

        /*
         * bonding note: skbs received on inactive slaves should only
         * be delivered to pkt handlers that are exact matches.  Also
         * the deliver_no_wcard flag will be set.  If packet handlers
         * are sensitive to duplicate packets these skbs will need to
         * be dropped at the handler.
         */
        null_or_orig = NULL;
        orig_dev = skb->dev;
        master = ACCESS_ONCE(orig_dev->master);
        if (skb->deliver_no_wcard)
                null_or_orig = orig_dev;
        else if (master) {
                if (skb_bond_should_drop(skb, master)) {
                        skb->deliver_no_wcard = 1;
                        null_or_orig = orig_dev; /* deliver only exact match */
                } else
                        skb->dev = master;
        }

The skb_bond_should_drop() and skb->dev = master logic is only applied at a single level.

After this code, skb->dev is the master dev of the receiving dev, but skb->dev->master can be != NULL, if another level of bonding exists. Nothing obvious would cause the packet to be delivered to this possible higher level bonding interface (skb->dev->master).

Is something else expected to call __netif_receive_skb() again, with the current skb, to cause another level of bonding to be reachable? For as far as I understand, nothing will, but I might have missed something.

	I've not tested with nesting in a while; I know it used to work
(at least for limited cases, typically an active-backup bond with a pair
of balance-xor or balance-rr or sometimes 802.3ad enslaved to it), but
has never really been a deliberate feature.  Is nesting now utterly
broken, as suggested by the list of problems above?

I don't know whether someone really use nested bonding, but I can hardly imagine how one can have it works with current kernel, except for a pure egress application, without any feedback from the network. And such very specific application wouldn't even be able to receive an ARP reply...

	If nesting really doesn't work and is going to be disabled, then
at a minimum it should also have an update to the documentation
explaining this.

At least, we should explain that nesting bonding interfaces is known to be mostly broken and unsupported.

That being said, we still miss a way to achieve a simple configuration with several links doing load balancing to a switch and one or several links doing fail over to another switch, both switches *not* being 802.3ad capable.

Should we arrange for bonding to be allowed to nest, for this purpose, or should we find a way to setup this configuration with a single level of bonding ? I would prefer the second, but...

	Nicolas.

Nicolas de Pesloüan [off-list ref] wrote:

Le 20/01/2011 20:53, Jay Vosburgh a écrit :

quoted

	I'm in agreement that, by and large, nesting of bonds is
pointless.  However, I suspect that there are users out in the world who
are happily doing so, and this patch may shut them down.

Hi Jay,

I tested the following nested bonding configuration:

bond1 : eth1 + eth3, in balance-rr mode.
bond2 : eth0 + eth2, in balance-rr mode.
bond0 : bond1 + bond2, in active-backup mode.

The egress path apparently works not so bad, even if I didn't take time
yet to check proper load balancing nor fail over.

However, the ingress path doesn't work at all. bond0 is unable to receive any packets (ARP or IP).

	In light of this, I don't see a problem with disallowing nesting
of bonds.  It should be documented in bonding.txt.

It doesn't sound surprising to me, having a look at the current code in __netif_receive_skb() :

quoted

        /*
         * bonding note: skbs received on inactive slaves should only
         * be delivered to pkt handlers that are exact matches.  Also
         * the deliver_no_wcard flag will be set.  If packet handlers
         * are sensitive to duplicate packets these skbs will need to
         * be dropped at the handler.
         */
        null_or_orig = NULL;
        orig_dev = skb->dev;
        master = ACCESS_ONCE(orig_dev->master);
        if (skb->deliver_no_wcard)
                null_or_orig = orig_dev;
        else if (master) {
                if (skb_bond_should_drop(skb, master)) {
                        skb->deliver_no_wcard = 1;
                        null_or_orig = orig_dev; /* deliver only exact match */
                } else
                        skb->dev = master;
        }

The skb_bond_should_drop() and skb->dev = master logic is only applied at a single level.

After this code, skb->dev is the master dev of the receiving dev, but
skb->dev->master can be != NULL, if another level of bonding
exists. Nothing obvious would cause the packet to be delivered to this
possible higher level bonding interface (skb->dev->master).

Is something else expected to call __netif_receive_skb() again, with the
current skb, to cause another level of bonding to be reachable? For as far
as I understand, nothing will, but I might have missed something.

quoted

	I've not tested with nesting in a while; I know it used to work
(at least for limited cases, typically an active-backup bond with a pair
of balance-xor or balance-rr or sometimes 802.3ad enslaved to it), but
has never really been a deliberate feature.  Is nesting now utterly
broken, as suggested by the list of problems above?

I don't know whether someone really use nested bonding, but I can hardly
imagine how one can have it works with current kernel, except for a pure
egress application, without any feedback from the network. And such very
specific application wouldn't even be able to receive an ARP reply...

quoted

	If nesting really doesn't work and is going to be disabled, then
at a minimum it should also have an update to the documentation
explaining this.

At least, we should explain that nesting bonding interfaces is known to be
mostly broken and unsupported.

That being said, we still miss a way to achieve a simple configuration
with several links doing load balancing to a switch and one or several
links doing fail over to another switch, both switches *not* being 802.3ad
capable.

	This is a harder problem, but it's something that doesn't work
today (and I suspect hasn't for a long time, so if somebody was using
this, I think there would have been some discussion).

Should we arrange for bonding to be allowed to nest, for this purpose, or
should we find a way to setup this configuration with a single level of
bonding ? I would prefer the second, but...

	I'm not sure that either is necessary; 802.3ad will do this
today, and few current production switches lack 802.3ad support.

	Adding support for etherchannel (i.e., not 802.3ad) gang
failover is nontrivial, because the multiple etherchannel port groups
will have to be managed separately, and most likely assigned manually.
Sure, it'd be nice to have, but I'm not sure if it's a benefit worth the
effort.

	Either way, for now, since I recall you mentioned in another
email that you'd crashed the system from nesting bonds, I don't see a
problem with disallowing nesting and updating the documentation with a
bit of this discussion (e.g., "nesting doesn't work, you're probably
trying to do gang failover, which 802.3ad already does for you").

	-J

---
	-Jay Vosburgh, IBM Linux Technology Center, fubar@us.ibm.com

Le 29/01/2011 01:38, Jay Vosburgh a écrit :

Nicolas de Pesloüan[off-list ref]  wrote:

[snip]

quoted

However, the ingress path doesn't work at all. bond0 is unable to receive any packets (ARP or IP).

	In light of this, I don't see a problem with disallowing nesting
of bonds.  It should be documented in bonding.txt.

Ok, I will do that.

Jiri, any trouble with me stealing your patch (code) and adding the documentation update part? Or do you prefer to do it yourself?

[snip]

quoted

That being said, we still miss a way to achieve a simple configuration
with several links doing load balancing to a switch and one or several
links doing fail over to another switch, both switches *not* being 802.3ad
capable.

	This is a harder problem, but it's something that doesn't work
today (and I suspect hasn't for a long time, so if somebody was using
this, I think there would have been some discussion).

In the mean time, I will state in the documentation that:

- nesting is not allowed.
- only the above particular setup would possibly require nesting.
- this can be achieve using 802.3ad mode, connected to 802.3ad capable switches.

quoted

Should we arrange for bonding to be allowed to nest, for this purpose, or
should we find a way to setup this configuration with a single level of
bonding ? I would prefer the second, but...

	I'm not sure that either is necessary; 802.3ad will do this
today, and few current production switches lack 802.3ad support.

	Adding support for etherchannel (i.e., not 802.3ad) gang
failover is nontrivial, because the multiple etherchannel port groups
will have to be managed separately, and most likely assigned manually.
Sure, it'd be nice to have, but I'm not sure if it's a benefit worth the
effort.

I'm far from a 802.3ad (802.1AX) specialist, but... wouldn't it be possible to force the aggregator by hand, for every slaves, to achieve the same effect as receiving LACPDU, when connected to non 802.3ad capable switches?

echo 802.3ad > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/mode
echo +eth0 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/slaves
echo +eth1 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/slaves
echo +eth2 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/slaves
echo 1 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/ad_aggregator_eth0 # those sysfs entries to be created...
echo 1 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/ad_aggregator_eth1
echo 2 > /sys/class/net/bond0/bonding/ad_aggregator_eth2

	Either way, for now, since I recall you mentioned in another
email that you'd crashed the system from nesting bonds, I don't see a
problem with disallowing nesting and updating the documentation with a
bit of this discussion (e.g., "nesting doesn't work, you're probably
trying to do gang failover, which 802.3ad already does for you").

Thanks.

	Nicolas.