[PATCH net v4 0/7] more virtio-net csum hardening
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From: "Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst@redhat.com>
Date: 2026-10-21 07:50:28
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Revision v4 of 4 in this series.
Revisions (4)
- v1 [diff vs current]
- v2 [diff vs current]
- v3 [diff vs current]
- v4 current
v4 and I'm pretty tired of this family of issues.
Willem suggested more cleanups, but I don't think I will
be able to dedicate much more time to this, there's a pile of
fixes I queued that need to get tested and go into rc2, and a bunch
of qemu features that need review.
Hopefully if any changes are required this can be done by patches on
top, or if someone wants to take over this, very welcome.
------
As reported first by Paulos Yibelo [off-list ref] (after which
others, credited below, found more ways the bug can affect users):
allowing untrusted hardware to specify csum start/offset for
CHECKSUM_PARTIAL was not a good idea, because, if it edits the packet
outside the actual checksum, and depending on the setup, the networking
stack could be looking at the packet both before and after the edit, and
seeing different results.
Previously, commit 6785011f8b16 ("ipv4: validate checksum_start before
completing checksum") validated all known instances where this
causes the most grief, but the real fix is to make sure
that either only actual checksum fields are ever edited,
or the checksum is completed before the net stack looks at it,
so it is always consistent.
This basically goes back to
what we did before f43798c27684 ("tun: Allow GSO using virtio_net_hdr"),
except in a narrow list of specified known good cases.
Summary of the patchset:
These are probabably net material (and seem to be too big for stable,
or I would recommend backporting there, too):
net: account for ingress-resolved virtio net hdr state
- accounting, not the fix itself, dependency of the fix
um: vector: trim skbs before verifying the header
- fixes the um receive path: without it the checksum would be
completed over the unreceived tail of the buffer
virtio_net: parse tunnel csum_start little-endian
- bugfix, a dependency of validating the header
net: resolve uncommon partial checksums at ingress
- fix itself
net: add a sysctl to opt out of virtio net hdr checksum validation
- reducing risk of the fix by adding a sysctl to disable it
These are cleanups, can be deferred to net-next, too:
net: add ip4_parse()
virtio_net: cleanup protocol calculation
- cleanup resulting code duplication
(kept separate to simplify backporting)
Fixes: f43798c27684 ("tun: Allow GSO using virtio_net_hdr")
Changes since v1:
- reorder patches to fix bisectability, addressing
a comment by Björn Töpel.
- code refactoring, different patch splitup,
a sysctl knob to disable as suggested by Willem de Bruijn.
- fix a bunch of minor issues spotted by LLMs
Changes since v2:
virtio_net: parse tunnel csum_start little-endian
- new patch. correctly parsing the header is a dependency
of validating it, otherwise i do not know what to validate
net: account for ingress-resolved virtio net hdr state
- make rx_csum_sw counter 64 bit so it won't wrap
(spotted by LLM review)
net: resolve uncommon partial checksums at ingress
- tunnel fixes to bugs noticed by Willem de Bruijn and
Chris Arges
- restore the csum_offset checks as suggested by Willem
net: add a sysctl to opt out of virtio net hdr checksum validation
- the knob is no longer writable by root inside a user
namespace: changing it now requires capable(CAP_NET_ADMIN)
suggested by Willem de Bruijn
net: add ip4_parse()
- comment converted to kernel-doc format (Willem de Bruijn)
um: vector: trim skbs before verifying the header
- new patch, found by code review
Changes since v3:
net: account for ingress-resolved virtio net hdr state
- um: vector: honor virtio net hdr conversion failures
folded in (Björn Töpel)
- count on tap and virtio_net, too (Willem de Bruijn)
net: resolve uncommon partial checksums at ingress
- walk the frame on loopback, too: loopback_xmit() runs
eth_type_trans() on it (Willem de Bruijn)
- return the mismatch handling directly, GSO is implied in
the tunnel path so drop there outright, and fold the helper
into its one remaining caller (Willem de Bruijn)
- read the IP version through struct iphdr (Willem de Bruijn)
- document the ipv6_find_hdr() flags choice
net: add a sysctl to opt out of virtio net hdr checksum validation
- renamed to virtio_net_hdr_validate, in case more validation
is gated by the same knob later (Willem de Bruijn)
- point .data at the value like the neighboring entries,
the per-netns registration rebases it, and the handler reads
the value directly - no ctl_table copy (Björn Töpel,
Willem de Bruijn)
- check the opt-out before parsing: with the knob off, packets
the parser cannot handle were still dropped (Willem de Bruijn)
- include virtio_net.h in net/core/dev.c so the static key
definition sees its declaration (build warning reported by
Jakub Kicinski)
net: add ip4_parse()
- add the missing kernel-doc Return: section
(Jakub Kicinski)
Tested: full suite on the final tree, tunnel included.
um part compiled only.
Michael S. Tsirkin (7):
net: account for ingress-resolved virtio net hdr state
um: vector: trim skbs before verifying the header
virtio_net: parse tunnel csum_start little-endian
net: resolve uncommon partial checksums at ingress
net: add a sysctl to opt out of virtio net hdr checksum validation
net: add ip4_parse()
virtio_net: cleanup protocol calculation
Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/net.rst | 19 +++
arch/um/drivers/vector_kern.c | 6 +-
arch/um/drivers/vector_transports.c | 4 +-
drivers/net/ipvlan/ipvtap.c | 36 ++++
drivers/net/macvtap.c | 36 ++++
drivers/net/tap.c | 8 +-
drivers/net/tun.c | 41 ++++-
drivers/net/virtio_net.c | 14 +-
include/linux/if_tap.h | 1 +
include/linux/ip.h | 30 ++++
include/linux/virtio_net.h | 279 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
include/net/netns/core.h | 1 +
net/bridge/br_netfilter_hooks.c | 15 +-
net/core/dev.c | 7 +
net/core/net_namespace.c | 1 +
net/core/sysctl_net_core.c | 50 ++++++
net/ipv4/ip_input.c | 13 +-
net/ipv4/netfilter/nf_reject_ipv4.c | 13 +-
net/packet/af_packet.c | 4 +-
19 files changed, 533 insertions(+), 45 deletions(-)
--
MST