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Diffstat (limited to 'datapath/README')
-rw-r--r-- | datapath/README | 35 |
1 files changed, 35 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/datapath/README b/datapath/README index 2d8a141b..b8a048b8 100644 --- a/datapath/README +++ b/datapath/README @@ -145,6 +145,41 @@ not understand the "vlan" key will not see either of those attributes and therefore will not misinterpret them. (Also, the outer eth_type is still 0x8100, not changed to 0x0800.) +Handling malformed packets +-------------------------- + +Don't drop packets in the kernel for malformed protocol headers, bad +checksums, etc. This would prevent userspace from implementing a +simple Ethernet switch that forwards every packet. + +Instead, in such a case, include an attribute with "empty" content. +It doesn't matter if the empty content could be valid protocol values, +as long as those values are rarely seen in practice, because userspace +can always forward all packets with those values to userspace and +handle them individually. + +For example, consider a packet that contains an IP header that +indicates protocol 6 for TCP, but which is truncated just after the IP +header, so that the TCP header is missing. The flow key for this +packet would include a tcp attribute with all-zero src and dst, like +this: + + eth(...), eth_type(0x0800), ip(proto=6, ...), tcp(src=0, dst=0) + +As another example, consider a packet with an Ethernet type of 0x8100, +indicating that a VLAN TCI should follow, but which is truncated just +after the Ethernet type. The flow key for this packet would include +an all-zero-bits vlan and an empty encap attribute, like this: + + eth(...), eth_type(0x8100), vlan(0), encap() + +Unlike a TCP packet with source and destination ports 0, an +all-zero-bits VLAN TCI is not that rare, so the CFI bit (aka +VLAN_TAG_PRESENT inside the kernel) is ordinarily set in a vlan +attribute expressly to allow this situation to be distinguished. +Thus, the flow key in this second example unambiguously indicates a +missing or malformed VLAN TCI. + Other rules ----------- |