170 lines
6.5 KiB
Plaintext
170 lines
6.5 KiB
Plaintext
|
|
The sync patches work is based on initial patches from
|
|
Krisztian <hidden@balabit.hu> and others and additional patches
|
|
from Jamal <hadi@cyberus.ca>.
|
|
|
|
The end goal for syncing is to be able to insert attributes + generate
|
|
events so that the SA can be safely moved from one machine to another
|
|
for HA purposes.
|
|
The idea is to synchronize the SA so that the takeover machine can do
|
|
the processing of the SA as accurate as possible if it has access to it.
|
|
|
|
We already have the ability to generate SA add/del/upd events.
|
|
These patches add ability to sync and have accurate lifetime byte (to
|
|
ensure proper decay of SAs) and replay counters to avoid replay attacks
|
|
with as minimal loss at failover time.
|
|
This way a backup stays as closely up-to-date as an active member.
|
|
|
|
Because the above items change for every packet the SA receives,
|
|
it is possible for a lot of the events to be generated.
|
|
For this reason, we also add a nagle-like algorithm to restrict
|
|
the events. i.e we are going to set thresholds to say "let me
|
|
know if the replay sequence threshold is reached or 10 secs have passed"
|
|
These thresholds are set system-wide via sysctls or can be updated
|
|
per SA.
|
|
|
|
The identified items that need to be synchronized are:
|
|
- the lifetime byte counter
|
|
note that: lifetime time limit is not important if you assume the failover
|
|
machine is known ahead of time since the decay of the time countdown
|
|
is not driven by packet arrival.
|
|
- the replay sequence for both inbound and outbound
|
|
|
|
1) Message Structure
|
|
----------------------
|
|
|
|
nlmsghdr:aevent_id:optional-TLVs.
|
|
|
|
The netlink message types are:
|
|
|
|
XFRM_MSG_NEWAE and XFRM_MSG_GETAE.
|
|
|
|
A XFRM_MSG_GETAE does not have TLVs.
|
|
A XFRM_MSG_NEWAE will have at least two TLVs (as is
|
|
discussed further below).
|
|
|
|
aevent_id structure looks like:
|
|
|
|
struct xfrm_aevent_id {
|
|
struct xfrm_usersa_id sa_id;
|
|
xfrm_address_t saddr;
|
|
__u32 flags;
|
|
__u32 reqid;
|
|
};
|
|
|
|
The unique SA is identified by the combination of xfrm_usersa_id,
|
|
reqid and saddr.
|
|
|
|
flags are used to indicate different things. The possible
|
|
flags are:
|
|
XFRM_AE_RTHR=1, /* replay threshold*/
|
|
XFRM_AE_RVAL=2, /* replay value */
|
|
XFRM_AE_LVAL=4, /* lifetime value */
|
|
XFRM_AE_ETHR=8, /* expiry timer threshold */
|
|
XFRM_AE_CR=16, /* Event cause is replay update */
|
|
XFRM_AE_CE=32, /* Event cause is timer expiry */
|
|
XFRM_AE_CU=64, /* Event cause is policy update */
|
|
|
|
How these flags are used is dependent on the direction of the
|
|
message (kernel<->user) as well the cause (config, query or event).
|
|
This is described below in the different messages.
|
|
|
|
The pid will be set appropriately in netlink to recognize direction
|
|
(0 to the kernel and pid = processid that created the event
|
|
when going from kernel to user space)
|
|
|
|
A program needs to subscribe to multicast group XFRMNLGRP_AEVENTS
|
|
to get notified of these events.
|
|
|
|
2) TLVS reflect the different parameters:
|
|
-----------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
a) byte value (XFRMA_LTIME_VAL)
|
|
This TLV carries the running/current counter for byte lifetime since
|
|
last event.
|
|
|
|
b)replay value (XFRMA_REPLAY_VAL)
|
|
This TLV carries the running/current counter for replay sequence since
|
|
last event.
|
|
|
|
c)replay threshold (XFRMA_REPLAY_THRESH)
|
|
This TLV carries the threshold being used by the kernel to trigger events
|
|
when the replay sequence is exceeded.
|
|
|
|
d) expiry timer (XFRMA_ETIMER_THRESH)
|
|
This is a timer value in milliseconds which is used as the nagle
|
|
value to rate limit the events.
|
|
|
|
3) Default configurations for the parameters:
|
|
----------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
By default these events should be turned off unless there is
|
|
at least one listener registered to listen to the multicast
|
|
group XFRMNLGRP_AEVENTS.
|
|
|
|
Programs installing SAs will need to specify the two thresholds, however,
|
|
in order to not change existing applications such as racoon
|
|
we also provide default threshold values for these different parameters
|
|
in case they are not specified.
|
|
|
|
the two sysctls/proc entries are:
|
|
a) /proc/sys/net/core/sysctl_xfrm_aevent_etime
|
|
used to provide default values for the XFRMA_ETIMER_THRESH in incremental
|
|
units of time of 100ms. The default is 10 (1 second)
|
|
|
|
b) /proc/sys/net/core/sysctl_xfrm_aevent_rseqth
|
|
used to provide default values for XFRMA_REPLAY_THRESH parameter
|
|
in incremental packet count. The default is two packets.
|
|
|
|
4) Message types
|
|
----------------
|
|
|
|
a) XFRM_MSG_GETAE issued by user-->kernel.
|
|
XFRM_MSG_GETAE does not carry any TLVs.
|
|
The response is a XFRM_MSG_NEWAE which is formatted based on what
|
|
XFRM_MSG_GETAE queried for.
|
|
The response will always have XFRMA_LTIME_VAL and XFRMA_REPLAY_VAL TLVs.
|
|
*if XFRM_AE_RTHR flag is set, then XFRMA_REPLAY_THRESH is also retrieved
|
|
*if XFRM_AE_ETHR flag is set, then XFRMA_ETIMER_THRESH is also retrieved
|
|
|
|
b) XFRM_MSG_NEWAE is issued by either user space to configure
|
|
or kernel to announce events or respond to a XFRM_MSG_GETAE.
|
|
|
|
i) user --> kernel to configure a specific SA.
|
|
any of the values or threshold parameters can be updated by passing the
|
|
appropriate TLV.
|
|
A response is issued back to the sender in user space to indicate success
|
|
or failure.
|
|
In the case of success, additionally an event with
|
|
XFRM_MSG_NEWAE is also issued to any listeners as described in iii).
|
|
|
|
ii) kernel->user direction as a response to XFRM_MSG_GETAE
|
|
The response will always have XFRMA_LTIME_VAL and XFRMA_REPLAY_VAL TLVs.
|
|
The threshold TLVs will be included if explicitly requested in
|
|
the XFRM_MSG_GETAE message.
|
|
|
|
iii) kernel->user to report as event if someone sets any values or
|
|
thresholds for an SA using XFRM_MSG_NEWAE (as described in #i above).
|
|
In such a case XFRM_AE_CU flag is set to inform the user that
|
|
the change happened as a result of an update.
|
|
The message will always have XFRMA_LTIME_VAL and XFRMA_REPLAY_VAL TLVs.
|
|
|
|
iv) kernel->user to report event when replay threshold or a timeout
|
|
is exceeded.
|
|
In such a case either XFRM_AE_CR (replay exceeded) or XFRM_AE_CE (timeout
|
|
happened) is set to inform the user what happened.
|
|
Note the two flags are mutually exclusive.
|
|
The message will always have XFRMA_LTIME_VAL and XFRMA_REPLAY_VAL TLVs.
|
|
|
|
Exceptions to threshold settings
|
|
--------------------------------
|
|
|
|
If you have an SA that is getting hit by traffic in bursts such that
|
|
there is a period where the timer threshold expires with no packets
|
|
seen, then an odd behavior is seen as follows:
|
|
The first packet arrival after a timer expiry will trigger a timeout
|
|
event; i.e we don't wait for a timeout period or a packet threshold
|
|
to be reached. This is done for simplicity and efficiency reasons.
|
|
|
|
-JHS
|