[PATCH net v6 5/5] net: add a sysctl to opt out of virtio net hdr checksum validation
flat view
HOTtoday
REVIEWED: 2 (2M)
From: "Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst@redhat.com>
Date: 2026-10-23 15:09:50
Also in:
linux-doc, lkml, virtualization
Subsystem:
documentation, networking [general], the rest, virtio core, virtio net driver · Maintainers:
Jonathan Corbet, "David S. Miller", Eric Dumazet, Jakub Kicinski, Paolo Abeni, Linus Torvalds, "Michael S. Tsirkin", Jason Wang, Eugenio Pérez
Revision v6 of 4 in this series; 2 review trailers.
Revisions (4)
- v2 [diff vs current]
- v3 [diff vs current]
- v5 [diff vs current]
- v6 current
The ingress validation as implemented by the previous
patch is stricter than what it replaced: GSO
packets whose checksum metadata matches no transport header are
dropped, and non-GSO ones get their checksum completed in place.
Such packets used to pass with the metadata unvalidated,
and with no overhead.
I judge that this should not affect any deployments, but there is still
some risk that it does. In case a deployment depends on them anyway,
provide a per-netns switch to get the old behavior back:
echo 0 > /proc/sys/net/core/virtio_net_hdr_validate
The default is validating.
Reviewed-by: Björn Töpel <bjorn@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: Willem de Bruijn <willemb@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Michael S. Tsirkin <mst@redhat.com>
---
Notes (changelog):
v4->v5:
document the netns lifetime requirement (sashiko)
Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/net.rst | 19 +++++++++
include/linux/virtio_net.h | 25 ++++++++++++
include/net/netns/core.h | 1 +
net/core/dev.c | 7 ++++
net/core/net_namespace.c | 1 +
net/core/sysctl_net_core.c | 50 ++++++++++++++++++++++++
6 files changed, 103 insertions(+)
diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/net.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/net.rst
index e586e17fc7a5..3c0223575438 100644
--- a/Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/net.rst
+++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/sysctl/net.rst@@ -246,6 +246,25 @@ processes are dropped unless socket option SOF_TIMESTAMPING_OPT_TSONLY is set. Default: 1 (on) +virtio_net_hdr_validate +----------------------- + +When processing packets with a virtio net header (through tun, tap, a +packet socket or a virtio network device) that request checksum offload +(VIRTIO_NET_HDR_F_NEEDS_CSUM), validate the packet: complete the checksum +in software, or drop the packet where the header does not match it. + +When disabled, the header is trusted not to corrupt the packet, and the +checksum is offloaded to hardware (or not verified if it never reaches +hardware). This is only safe if no protocol is processing the packets. + +The setting is per network namespace, but only writable by the host +root: root inside a network namespace created by an unprivileged user +cannot disable the validation. + +Default: 1 (on) + + wmem_default ------------
diff --git a/include/linux/virtio_net.h b/include/linux/virtio_net.h
index 14120710d075..c6b5957b3248 100644
--- a/include/linux/virtio_net.h
+++ b/include/linux/virtio_net.h@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ #include <linux/if_vlan.h> #include <linux/ip.h> #include <linux/ipv6.h> +#include <linux/jump_label.h> #include <linux/netdevice.h> #include <linux/udp.h> #include <net/gso.h>
@@ -85,6 +86,18 @@ static inline struct iphdr *virtio_net_ip4_parse(struct sk_buff *skb, return (struct iphdr *)(skb->data + nhoff); } +/* Defined in net/core/dev.c, enabled while any network namespace + * has net.core.virtio_net_hdr_validate set to 0. + */ +DECLARE_STATIC_KEY_FALSE(virtio_net_hdr_validate_disabled_key); + +/*The caller must keep the netns of skb->dev alive. */ +static inline bool virtio_net_hdr_validate_disabled(struct sk_buff *skb) +{ + return static_branch_unlikely(&virtio_net_hdr_validate_disabled_key) && + !READ_ONCE(dev_net(skb->dev)->core.sysctl_virtio_net_hdr_validate); +} + /* Where does the L3 header start, and what protocol is it? * Handles Ethernet and VLAN headers; other devices use the * network header offset the caller set up.
@@ -198,6 +211,12 @@ virtio_net_csum_partial_ok_at_offset(struct sk_buff *skb, u8 hdr_gso_type, unsigned int thoff; int ip_proto; + /* Failsafe: a namespace opted out of the validation, + * trust the checksum metadata as before. + */ + if (virtio_net_hdr_validate_disabled(skb)) + return true; + if (!virtio_net_l4_start(skb, nhoff, proto, &thoff, &ip_proto)) return false;
@@ -240,6 +259,9 @@ virtio_net_csum_partial_ok(struct sk_buff *skb, u8 hdr_gso_type) int nhoff; __be16 proto; + if (virtio_net_hdr_validate_disabled(skb)) + return true; + if (!virtio_net_l3_start(skb, &nhoff, &proto)) return false;
@@ -531,6 +553,9 @@ virtio_net_tnl_offsets_ok(struct sk_buff *skb, bool outer_isv6, unsigned int thoff; int ip_proto; + if (virtio_net_hdr_validate_disabled(skb)) + return true; + if (!virtio_net_l3_start(skb, &nhoff, &proto)) return false; if (outer_isv6 != (proto == htons(ETH_P_IPV6)))
diff --git a/include/net/netns/core.h b/include/net/netns/core.h
index 9ef3d70e5e9c..02ce232fe9a9 100644
--- a/include/net/netns/core.h
+++ b/include/net/netns/core.h@@ -18,6 +18,7 @@ struct netns_core { u8 sysctl_txrehash; u8 sysctl_tstamp_allow_data; u8 sysctl_bypass_prot_mem; + u8 sysctl_virtio_net_hdr_validate; #ifdef CONFIG_PROC_FS struct prot_inuse __percpu *prot_inuse;
diff --git a/net/core/dev.c b/net/core/dev.c
index e76762e29360..43b8823c83f6 100644
--- a/net/core/dev.c
+++ b/net/core/dev.c@@ -128,6 +128,7 @@ #include <linux/if_vlan.h> #include <linux/ip.h> #include <net/ip.h> +#include <linux/virtio_net.h> #include <net/mpls.h> #include <linux/ipv6.h> #include <linux/in.h>
@@ -2389,6 +2390,12 @@ EXPORT_SYMBOL(tcf_sw_enabled_key); DEFINE_STATIC_KEY_FALSE(netstamp_needed_key); EXPORT_SYMBOL(netstamp_needed_key); + +/* Enabled while any network namespace has net.core.virtio_net_hdr_validate + * set to 0. + */ +DEFINE_STATIC_KEY_FALSE(virtio_net_hdr_validate_disabled_key); +EXPORT_SYMBOL(virtio_net_hdr_validate_disabled_key); #ifdef CONFIG_JUMP_LABEL static atomic_t netstamp_needed_deferred; static atomic_t netstamp_wanted;
diff --git a/net/core/net_namespace.c b/net/core/net_namespace.c
index da5f881fbd3b..8a21baaa7e6d 100644
--- a/net/core/net_namespace.c
+++ b/net/core/net_namespace.c@@ -396,6 +396,7 @@ static __net_init void preinit_net_sysctl(struct net *net) net->core.sysctl_optmem_max = 128 * 1024; net->core.sysctl_txrehash = SOCK_TXREHASH_ENABLED; net->core.sysctl_tstamp_allow_data = 1; + net->core.sysctl_virtio_net_hdr_validate = 1; net->core.sysctl_txq_reselection = msecs_to_jiffies(1000); }
diff --git a/net/core/sysctl_net_core.c b/net/core/sysctl_net_core.c
index eb35da3556f4..3e4037b82a97 100644
--- a/net/core/sysctl_net_core.c
+++ b/net/core/sysctl_net_core.c@@ -18,6 +18,8 @@ #include <linux/slab.h> #include <linux/sched/isolation.h> #include <linux/hex.h> +#include <linux/virtio_net.h> +#include <linux/jump_label.h> #include <net/ip.h> #include <net/sock.h>
@@ -678,6 +680,43 @@ static struct ctl_table net_core_table[] = { }, }; +/* Protects changes to virtio_net_hdr_validate_disabled_key and each + * net->core.sysctl_virtio_net_hdr_validate. The packet path reads + * the value without a lock. + */ +static DEFINE_MUTEX(virtio_net_hdr_validate_mutex); + +static int virtio_net_hdr_validate_sysctl(const struct ctl_table *table, + int write, void *buffer, + size_t *lenp, loff_t *ppos) +{ + u8 *value = table->data; + u8 old, new; + int ret; + + /* Root in a user namespace must not be able to weaken the + * validation for the network namespace it controls. + */ + if (write && !capable(CAP_NET_ADMIN)) + return -EPERM; + + mutex_lock(&virtio_net_hdr_validate_mutex); + + old = READ_ONCE(*value); + ret = proc_dou8vec_minmax(table, write, buffer, lenp, ppos); + new = READ_ONCE(*value); + if (write && !ret && old != new) { + if (new) + static_branch_dec(&virtio_net_hdr_validate_disabled_key); + else + static_branch_inc(&virtio_net_hdr_validate_disabled_key); + } + + mutex_unlock(&virtio_net_hdr_validate_mutex); + + return ret; +} + static const struct ctl_table netns_core_table[] = { #if IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_RPS) {
@@ -737,6 +776,15 @@ static const struct ctl_table netns_core_table[] = { .extra1 = SYSCTL_ZERO, .extra2 = SYSCTL_ONE }, + { + .procname = "virtio_net_hdr_validate", + .data = &init_net.core.sysctl_virtio_net_hdr_validate, + .maxlen = sizeof(u8), + .mode = 0644, + .proc_handler = virtio_net_hdr_validate_sysctl, + .extra1 = SYSCTL_ZERO, + .extra2 = SYSCTL_ONE + }, /* sysctl_core_net_init() will set the values after this * to readonly in network namespaces */
@@ -841,6 +889,8 @@ static __net_exit void sysctl_core_net_exit(struct net *net) tbl = net->core.sysctl_hdr->ctl_table_arg; unregister_net_sysctl_table(net->core.sysctl_hdr); BUG_ON(tbl == netns_core_table); + if (!net->core.sysctl_virtio_net_hdr_validate) + static_branch_dec(&virtio_net_hdr_validate_disabled_key); #if IS_ENABLED(CONFIG_RPS) kfree(net->core.rps_default_mask); #endif
--
MST