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authorDavid S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>2018-03-30 11:41:18 -0400
committerDavid S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>2018-03-30 11:41:18 -0400
commitd162190bded8b3f635d1ba1e27e63d1b4a720ba8 (patch)
treef3713390c2189992c36f3a992ae47eccbe9b1531 /Documentation/networking
parentb9a12601541eb55d07e00261a5112a4bc36fe7be (diff)
parent26c97c5d8dac6bc56d4360561a286f52543ac07e (diff)
Merge git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/pablo/nf-next
Pablo Neira Ayuso says: ==================== Netfilter/IPVS updates for net-next The following patchset contains Netfilter/IPVS updates for your net-next tree. This batch comes with more input sanitization for xtables to address bug reports from fuzzers, preparation works to the flowtable infrastructure and assorted updates. In no particular order, they are: 1) Make sure userspace provides a valid standard target verdict, from Florian Westphal. 2) Sanitize error target size, also from Florian. 3) Validate that last rule in basechain matches underflow/policy since userspace assumes this when decoding the ruleset blob that comes from the kernel, from Florian. 4) Consolidate hook entry checks through xt_check_table_hooks(), patch from Florian. 5) Cap ruleset allocations at 512 mbytes, 134217728 rules and reject very large compat offset arrays, so we have a reasonable upper limit and fuzzers don't exercise the oom-killer. Patches from Florian. 6) Several WARN_ON checks on xtables mutex helper, from Florian. 7) xt_rateest now has a hashtable per net, from Cong Wang. 8) Consolidate counter allocation in xt_counters_alloc(), from Florian. 9) Earlier xt_table_unlock() call in {ip,ip6,arp,eb}tables, patch from Xin Long. 10) Set FLOW_OFFLOAD_DIR_* to IP_CT_DIR_* definitions, patch from Felix Fietkau. 11) Consolidate code through flow_offload_fill_dir(), also from Felix. 12) Inline ip6_dst_mtu_forward() just like ip_dst_mtu_maybe_forward() to remove a dependency with flowtable and ipv6.ko, from Felix. 13) Cache mtu size in flow_offload_tuple object, this is safe for forwarding as f87c10a8aa1e describes, from Felix. 14) Rename nf_flow_table.c to nf_flow_table_core.o, to simplify too modular infrastructure, from Felix. 15) Add rt0, rt2 and rt4 IPv6 routing extension support, patch from Ahmed Abdelsalam. 16) Remove unused parameter in nf_conncount_count(), from Yi-Hung Wei. 17) Support for counting only to nf_conncount infrastructure, patch from Yi-Hung Wei. 18) Add strict NFT_CT_{SRC_IP,DST_IP,SRC_IP6,DST_IP6} key datatypes to nft_ct. 19) Use boolean as return value from ipt_ah and from IPVS too, patch from Gustavo A. R. Silva. 20) Remove useless parameters in nfnl_acct_overquota() and nf_conntrack_broadcast_help(), from Taehee Yoo. 21) Use ipv6_addr_is_multicast() from xt_cluster, also from Taehee Yoo. 22) Statify nf_tables_obj_lookup_byhandle, patch from Fengguang Wu. 23) Fix typo in xt_limit, from Geert Uytterhoeven. 24) Do no use VLAs in Netfilter code, again from Gustavo. 25) Use ADD_COUNTER from ebtables, from Taehee Yoo. 26) Bitshift support for CONNMARK and MARK targets, from Jack Ma. 27) Use pr_*() and add pr_fmt(), from Arushi Singhal. 28) Add synproxy support to ctnetlink. 29) ICMP type and IGMP matching support for ebtables, patches from Matthias Schiffer. 30) Support for the revision infrastructure to ebtables, from Bernie Harris. 31) String match support for ebtables, also from Bernie. 32) Documentation for the new flowtable infrastructure. 33) Use generic comparison functions in ebt_stp, from Joe Perches. 34) Demodularize filter chains in nftables. 35) Register conntrack hooks in case nftables NAT chain is added. 36) Merge assignments with return in a couple of spots in the Netfilter codebase, also from Arushi. 37) Document that xtables percpu counters are stored in the same memory area, from Ben Hutchings. 38) Revert mark_source_chains() sanity checks that break existing rulesets, from Florian Westphal. 39) Use is_zero_ether_addr() in the ipset codebase, from Joe Perches. ==================== Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
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+Netfilter's flowtable infrastructure
+====================================
+
+This documentation describes the software flowtable infrastructure available in
+Netfilter since Linux kernel 4.16.
+
+Overview
+--------
+
+Initial packets follow the classic forwarding path, once the flow enters the
+established state according to the conntrack semantics (ie. we have seen traffic
+in both directions), then you can decide to offload the flow to the flowtable
+from the forward chain via the 'flow offload' action available in nftables.
+
+Packets that find an entry in the flowtable (ie. flowtable hit) are sent to the
+output netdevice via neigh_xmit(), hence, they bypass the classic forwarding
+path (the visible effect is that you do not see these packets from any of the
+netfilter hooks coming after the ingress). In case of flowtable miss, the packet
+follows the classic forward path.
+
+The flowtable uses a resizable hashtable, lookups are based on the following
+7-tuple selectors: source, destination, layer 3 and layer 4 protocols, source
+and destination ports and the input interface (useful in case there are several
+conntrack zones in place).
+
+Flowtables are populated via the 'flow offload' nftables action, so the user can
+selectively specify what flows are placed into the flow table. Hence, packets
+follow the classic forwarding path unless the user explicitly instruct packets
+to use this new alternative forwarding path via nftables policy.
+
+This is represented in Fig.1, which describes the classic forwarding path
+including the Netfilter hooks and the flowtable fastpath bypass.
+
+ userspace process
+ ^ |
+ | |
+ _____|____ ____\/___
+ / \ / \
+ | input | | output |
+ \__________/ \_________/
+ ^ |
+ | |
+ _________ __________ --------- _____\/_____
+ / \ / \ |Routing | / \
+ --> ingress ---> prerouting ---> |decision| | postrouting |--> neigh_xmit
+ \_________/ \__________/ ---------- \____________/ ^
+ | ^ | | ^ |
+ flowtable | | ____\/___ | |
+ | | | / \ | |
+ __\/___ | --------->| forward |------------ |
+ |-----| | \_________/ |
+ |-----| | 'flow offload' rule |
+ |-----| | adds entry to |
+ |_____| | flowtable |
+ | | |
+ / \ | |
+ /hit\_no_| |
+ \ ? / |
+ \ / |
+ |__yes_________________fastpath bypass ____________________________|
+
+ Fig.1 Netfilter hooks and flowtable interactions
+
+The flowtable entry also stores the NAT configuration, so all packets are
+mangled according to the NAT policy that matches the initial packets that went
+through the classic forwarding path. The TTL is decremented before calling
+neigh_xmit(). Fragmented traffic is passed up to follow the classic forwarding
+path given that the transport selectors are missing, therefore flowtable lookup
+is not possible.
+
+Example configuration
+---------------------
+
+Enabling the flowtable bypass is relatively easy, you only need to create a
+flowtable and add one rule to your forward chain.
+
+ table inet x {
+ flowtable f {
+ hook ingress priority 0 devices = { eth0, eth1 };
+ }
+ chain y {
+ type filter hook forward priority 0; policy accept;
+ ip protocol tcp flow offload @f
+ counter packets 0 bytes 0
+ }
+ }
+
+This example adds the flowtable 'f' to the ingress hook of the eth0 and eth1
+netdevices. You can create as many flowtables as you want in case you need to
+perform resource partitioning. The flowtable priority defines the order in which
+hooks are run in the pipeline, this is convenient in case you already have a
+nftables ingress chain (make sure the flowtable priority is smaller than the
+nftables ingress chain hence the flowtable runs before in the pipeline).
+
+The 'flow offload' action from the forward chain 'y' adds an entry to the
+flowtable for the TCP syn-ack packet coming in the reply direction. Once the
+flow is offloaded, you will observe that the counter rule in the example above
+does not get updated for the packets that are being forwarded through the
+forwarding bypass.
+
+More reading
+------------
+
+This documentation is based on the LWN.net articles [1][2]. Rafal Milecki also
+made a very complete and comprehensive summary called "A state of network
+acceleration" that describes how things were before this infrastructure was
+mailined [3] and it also makes a rough summary of this work [4].
+
+[1] https://lwn.net/Articles/738214/
+[2] https://lwn.net/Articles/742164/
+[3] http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/lede-dev/2018-January/010830.html
+[4] http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/lede-dev/2018-January/010829.html