Re: [PATCH net-next v14 00/15] net: introduce QUIC infrastructure and core subcomponents
From: Xin Long <lucien.xin@gmail.com>
Date: 2026-07-28 14:47:17
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linux-cifs
On Tue, Jul 28, 2026 at 9:17 AM Paolo Abeni [off-list ref] wrote:
On 7/15/26 10:27 PM, Xin Long wrote:quoted
Introduction ============ The QUIC protocol, defined in RFC 9000, is a secure, multiplexed transport built on top of UDP. It enables low-latency connection establishment, stream-based communication with flow control, and supports connection migration across network paths, while ensuring confidentiality, integrity, and availability. This implementation introduces QUIC support in Linux Kernel, offering several key advantages: - In-Kernel QUIC Support for Subsystems: Enables kernel subsystems such as SMB and NFS to operate over QUIC with minimal changes. Once the handshake is complete via the net/handshake APIs, data exchange proceeds over standard in-kernel transport interfaces. - Standard Socket API Semantics: Implements core socket operations (listen(), accept(), connect(), sendmsg(), recvmsg(), close(), getsockopt(), setsockopt(), getsockname(), and getpeername()), allowing user space to interact with QUIC sockets in a familiar, POSIX-compliant way. - ALPN-Based Connection Dispatching: Supports in-kernel ALPN (Application-Layer Protocol Negotiation) routing, allowing demultiplexing of QUIC connections across different user-space processes based on the ALPN identifiers. - Performance Enhancements: Handles all control messages in-kernel to reduce syscall overhead, incorporates zero-copy mechanisms such as sendfile() to minimize data movement, and is also structured to support future crypto hardware offloads. This implementation offers fundamental support for the following RFCs: - RFC9000 - QUIC: A UDP-Based Multiplexed and Secure Transport - RFC9001 - Using TLS to Secure QUIC - RFC9002 - QUIC Loss Detection and Congestion Control - RFC9221 - An Unreliable Datagram Extension to QUIC - RFC9287 - Greasing the QUIC Bit - RFC9368 - Compatible Version Negotiation for QUIC - RFC9369 - QUIC Version 2 The socket APIs for QUIC follow the RFC draft [1]: - The Sockets API Extensions for In-kernel QUIC Implementations Implementation ============== The central design is to implement QUIC within the kernel while delegating the handshake to userspace. Only the processing and creation of raw TLS Handshake Messages are handled in userspace, facilitated by a TLS library like GnuTLS. These messages are exchanged between kernel and userspace via sendmsg() and recvmsg(), with cryptographic details conveyed through control messages (cmsg). The entire QUIC protocol, aside from the TLS Handshake Messages processing and creation, is managed in the kernel. Rather than using an Upper Layer Protocol (ULP) layer, this implementation establishes a socket of type IPPROTO_QUIC (similar to IPPROTO_MPTCP), operating over UDP tunnels. For kernel consumers, they can initiate a handshake request from the kernel to userspace using the existing net/handshake netlink. The userspace component, such as tlshd service [2], then manages the processing of the QUIC handshake request. - Handshake Architecture: ┌──────┐ ┌──────┐ │ APP1 │ │ APP2 │ ... └──────┘ └──────┘ ┌──────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ {quic_client/server_handshake()} │<─────────────┐ └──────────────────────────────────────────┘ ┌─────────────┐ {send/recvmsg()} {set/getsockopt()} │ tlshd │ [CMSG handshake_info] [SOCKOPT_CRYPTO_SECRET] └─────────────┘ [SOCKOPT_TRANSPORT_PARAM_EXT] │ ^ │ ^ │ ^ │ │ Userspace │ │ │ │ │ │ ──────────────│─│──────────────────│─│──────────────────│───│─────── Kernel │ │ │ │ │ │ v │ v │ v │ ┌──────────────────┬───────────────────────┐ ┌─────────────┐ │ protocol, timer, │ socket (IPPROTO_QUIC) │<──┐ │ handshake │ │ ├───────────────────────┤ │ │netlink APIs │ │ common, family, │ outqueue | inqueue │ │ └─────────────┘ │ ├───────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ stream, connid, │ frame │ │ ┌─────┐ ┌─────┐ │ ├───────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ │ │ path, pnspace, │ packet │ │───│ SMB │ │ NFS │... │ ├───────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ │ │ cong, crypto │ UDP tunnels │ │ └─────┘ └─────┘ └──────────────────┴───────────────────────┘ └──────┴───────┘ - User Data Architecture: ┌──────┐ ┌──────┐ │ APP1 │ │ APP2 │ ... └──────┘ └──────┘ {send/recvmsg()} {set/getsockopt()} {recvmsg()} [CMSG stream_info] [SOCKOPT_KEY_UPDATE] [EVENT conn update] [SOCKOPT_CONNECTION_MIGRATION] [EVENT stream update] [SOCKOPT_STREAM_OPEN/RESET/STOP] │ ^ │ ^ ^ Userspace │ │ │ │ │ ──────────────│─│───────────────│─│─────────────────────│─────────── Kernel │ │ │ │ │ v │ v │ ┌──────────────────┘ ┌──────────────────┬───────────────────────┐ │ protocol, timer, │ socket (IPPROTO_QUIC) │<──┐{kernel_send/recvmsg()} │ ├───────────────────────┤ │{kernel_set/getsockopt()} │ common, family, │ outqueue | inqueue │ │{kernel_recvmsg()} │ ├───────────────────────┤ │ │ stream, connid, │ frame │ │ ┌─────┐ ┌─────┐ │ ├───────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ │ │ path, pnspace, │ packet │ │───│ SMB │ │ NFS │... │ ├───────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ │ │ cong, crypto │ UDP tunnels │ │ └─────┘ └─────┘ └──────────────────┴───────────────────────┘ └──────┴───────┘ Interface ========= This implementation supports a mapping of QUIC into sockets APIs. Similar to TCP and SCTP, a typical Server and Client use the following system call sequence to communicate: Client Server ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── sockfd = socket(IPPROTO_QUIC) listenfd = socket(IPPROTO_QUIC) bind(sockfd) bind(listenfd) listen(listenfd) connect(sockfd) quic_client_handshake(sockfd) sockfd = accept(listenfd) quic_server_handshake(sockfd, cert) sendmsg(sockfd) recvmsg(sockfd) close(sockfd) close(sockfd) close(listenfd) Please note that quic_client_handshake() and quic_server_handshake() functions are currently sourced from libquic [3]. These functions are responsible for receiving and processing the raw TLS handshake messages until the completion of the handshake process. For utilization by kernel consumers, it is essential to have tlshd service [2] installed and running in userspace. This service receives and manages kernel handshake requests for kernel sockets. In the kernel, the APIs closely resemble those used in userspace: Client Server ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── __sock_create(IPPROTO_QUIC, &sock) __sock_create(IPPROTO_QUIC, &sock) kernel_bind(sock) kernel_bind(sock) kernel_listen(sock) kernel_connect(sock) tls_client_hello_x509(args:{sock}) kernel_accept(sock, &newsock) tls_server_hello_x509(args:{newsock}) kernel_sendmsg(sock) kernel_recvmsg(newsock) sock_release(sock) sock_release(newsock) sock_release(sock) Please be aware that tls_client_hello_x509() and tls_server_hello_x509() are APIs from net/handshake/. They are used to dispatch the handshake request to the userspace tlshd service and subsequently block until the handshake process is completed. Use Cases ========= - Samba Stefan Metzmacher has integrated Linux QUIC into Samba for both client and server roles [4]. - tlshd The tlshd daemon [2] facilitates Linux QUIC handshake requests from kernel sockets. This is essential for enabling protocols like SMB and NFS over QUIC. - curl Linux QUIC is being integrated into curl [5] for HTTP/3. Example usage: # curl --http3-only https://nghttp2.org:4433/ # curl --http3-only https://www.google.com/ # curl --http3-only https://facebook.com/ # curl --http3-only https://outlook.office.com/ # curl --http3-only https://cloudflare-quic.com/ - httpd-portable Moritz Buhl has deployed an HTTP/3 server over Linux QUIC [6] that is accessible via Firefox and curl: https://d.moritzbuhl.de/pub - NetPerfMeter The latest NetPerfMeter release supports Linux QUIC and can be used to run performance evaluations [10]. Test Coverage ============= The Coverage (gcov) of Functional and Interop Tests: https://d.moritzbuhl.de/lcov - Functional Tests The libquic self-tests (make check) pass on all major architectures: x86_64, i386, s390x, aarch64, ppc64le. - Interop tests Interoperability was validated using the QUIC Interop Runner [7] against all major userland QUIC stacks. Results are available at: https://d.moritzbuhl.de/ - Fuzzing via Syzkaller Syzkaller has been running kernel fuzzing with QUIC for weeks using tests/syzkaller/ in libquic [3]. - Performance Testing Performance was benchmarked using iperf [8] over a 100G NIC using various MTUs and packet sizes: - QUIC vs. kTLS: UNIT size:1024 size:4096 size:16384 size:65536 Gbits/sec QUIC | kTLS QUIC | kTLS QUIC | kTLS QUIC | kTLS ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── mtu:1500 2.27 | 3.26 3.02 | 6.97 3.36 | 9.74 3.48 | 10.8 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── mtu:9000 3.66 | 3.72 5.87 | 8.92 7.03 | 11.2 8.04 | 11.4 - QUIC(disable_1rtt_encryption) vs. TCP: UNIT size:1024 size:4096 size:16384 size:65536 Gbits/sec QUIC | TCP QUIC | TCP QUIC | TCP QUIC | TCP ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── mtu:1500 3.09 | 4.59 4.46 | 14.2 5.07 | 21.3 5.18 | 23.9 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── mtu:9000 4.60 | 4.65 8.41 | 14.0 11.3 | 28.9 13.5 | 39.2 The performance gap between QUIC and kTLS may be attributed to: - The absence of Generic Segmentation Offload (GSO) for QUIC. - An additional data copy on the transmission (TX) path. - Extra encryption required for header protection in QUIC. - A longer header length for the stream data in QUIC. Patches ======= Note: This implementation is organized into five parts and submitted across two patchsets for review. This patchset includes Parts 1–2, while Parts 3–5 will be submitted in a subsequent patchset. For complete series, see [9]. 1. Infrastructure (2): net: define IPPROTO_QUIC and SOL_QUIC constants net: build socket infrastructure for QUIC protocol 2. Subcomponents (13): quic: provide common utilities and data structures quic: provide family ops for address and protocol quic: provide quic.h header files for kernel and userspace quic: add stream management quic: add connection id management quic: add path management quic: add congestion control quic: add packet number space quic: add crypto key derivation and installation quic: add crypto packet encryption and decryption quic: add timer management quic: add packet builder base quic: add packet parser base 3. Data Processing (8): quic: add frame encoder and decoder base quic: implement outqueue transmission and flow control quic: implement outqueue sack and retransmission quic: implement inqueue receiving and flow control quic: implement frame creation functions quic: implement frame processing functions quic: implement packet creation functions quic: implement packet processing functions 4. Socket APIs (6): quic: support bind/listen/connect/accept/close() quic: support sendmsg() and recvmsg() quic: support socket options related to interaction after handshake quic: support socket options related to settings prior to handshake quic: support socket options related to setup during handshake quic: support socket ioctls and socket dump via procfs 5. Documentation and Selftests (3): Documentation: describe QUIC protocol interface in quic.rst quic: create sample test using handshake APIs for kernel consumers selftests: net: add tests for QUIC protocol Notice: The QUIC module is currently labeled as "EXPERIMENTAL". All contributors are recognized in the respective patches with the tag of 'Signed-off-by:'. Special thanks to Moritz Buhl and Stefan Metzmacher whose practical use cases and insightful feedback have been instrumental in shaping the design and advancing the development. References ========== [1] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-lxin-quic-socket-apis [2] https://github.com/oracle/ktls-utils [3] https://github.com/lxin/quic [4] https://gitlab.com/samba-team/samba/-/merge_requests/4019 [5] https://github.com/moritzbuhl/curl/tree/linux_curl [6] https://github.com/moritzbuhl/httpd-portable [7] https://github.com/quic-interop/quic-interop-runner [8] https://github.com/lxin/iperf [9] https://github.com/lxin/net-next/commits/quic/ [10] https://www.nntb.no/~dreibh/netperfmeter/ Changes in v2-v14: See individual patch changelogs for details.I see that the possible UaF reported by claude are supposedly avoided by a follow-up patch, as per discussion on v13. I would have been better to at least explicitly note such fact in the commit message. Is the relevant code path reachable with the current series? Generally speaking it would be helpful a more fine grained discussion of the actually reported issues. i.e. it's not obvious to me why the potentianl UaF reported by sashiko gemini in patch 8 for netns do not apply, nor could I find trivially a relevant discussion in the past few revision.
The netns passive refcnt held by (udp tunnel) kernel sockets will prevent the UaF in patch 8. I will first debase these high prio ones in this patchset, so that other reviewers can comment if they disagree. Then try to add more notes in the commit message to convince the sashiko not to report these "false positive" ones we already confirmed for the next revision, including the fixed by follow-up patch one you mentioned above. Thanks.