Re: [PATCH] ipv6: Fix default route failover when CONFIG_IPV6_ROUTER_PREF=n

From: Paul Marks <redacted>
Date: Sun,  2 Dec 2012 02:00:21 -0800

I believe this commit from 2008 was incorrect:
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git;a=commitdiff;h=398bcbebb6f721ac308df1e3d658c0029bb74503

When CONFIG_IPV6_ROUTER_PREF is disabled, the kernel should follow
RFC4861 section 6.3.6: if no route is NUD_VALID, then traffic should be
sprayed across all routers (indirectly triggering NUD) until one of them
becomes NUD_VALID.

However, the following experiment demonstrates that this does not work:

1) Connect to an IPv6 network.
2) Change the router's MAC (and link-local) address.

The kernel will lock onto the first router and never try the new one, even
if the first becomes unreachable.  This patch fixes the problem by
allowing rt6_check_neigh() to return 0; if all routers return 0, then
rt6_select() will fall back to round-robin behavior.

This patch should have no effect when CONFIG_IPV6_ROUTER_PREF=y.

Note that rt6_check_neigh() is only used in a boolean context, so the
presence of both "m = 1" and "m = 2" was irrelevant and confusing.

Signed-off-by: Paul Marks <redacted>

The values '1' and '2' used to influence rt6_score_route() in different
ways.

Please change rt6_check_neigh() to return a "bool" if you are going to
do this.

Thanks.