[ovs-dev] [PATCH ovn v2] OVN: Fix learning of neighbors from ARP/ND packets.

[Han Zhou]

On Mon, Aug 5, 2019 at 1:06 AM Dumitru Ceara <dceara at redhat.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Aug 5, 2019 at 1:41 AM Han Zhou <zhouhan at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Jul 29, 2019 at 2:30 AM Dumitru Ceara <dceara at redhat.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Add a restriction on the target protocol addresses to match the
> > > configured subnets. All other ARP/ND packets are invalid in this
> > > context.
> > >
> > > One exception is for ARP replies that are received for route next-hops
> > > that are only reachable via a port but can't be directly resolved
> > > through route lookups. Such support was introduced by commit:
> > >
> > > 6b785fd8fe29 ("ovn-util: Allow /32 IP addresses for router ports.")
> > >
> > > Reported-at: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1729846
> > > Reported-by: Haidong Li <haili at redhat.com>
> > > CC: Han Zhou <zhouhan at gmail.com>
> > > CC: Guru Shetty <guru at ovn.org>
> > > Fixes: b068454082f5 ("ovn-northd: Support learning neighbor from ARP
request.")
> > > Signed-off-by: Dumitru Ceara <dceara at redhat.com>
> >
> > Hi Dumitru,
>
> Hi Han,
>
> Thanks for reviewing this.
>
> >
> > Sorry for my slow response, and thanks a lot for revising the patch for
a bigger scope of validations. However, the exception of /32 address makes
me thinking more about this patch. If ARP replies is allowed from any
nexthop for a LR port with /32, at least ARP request for GARP purpose
should also be allowed. But before asking for a v3, I'd hold on to rethink
the purpose of this patch.
>
> Right, we should allow GARP requests too. If we decide to go ahead
> with this patch I'll add a function in v3 to handle all types of ARPs
> and call it both for unreachable static route next-hops and attached
> subnets.
>
> >
> > The nexthop specific flows are now from static routes. What if OVN
support dynamical routing protocols in the future? Of course we can then
take those dynamic nexthops into allowed peers. But then I am thinking what
is the real benefit of all these restrictions? Why can't we just have
simpler logic to handle all these situations without validation? I think
the major benefit of the validation is to avoid handling the noise ARP/NDs
when multiple subnets shares same L2, but most cases it is really not a big
deal, right? For the CPU problem caused by ARP flooding as mentioned by the
bug report, it is a real problem, but this patch seems not really helpful
for that, because the attacker can just trigger the same CPU problem with
*valid* packets. So I am not sure if the benefit of the change is worth the
complexity it introduced. Please share your thought and correct me if I
missed something.
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Han
>
> I assume the simpler logic to handle all these situations without
> validation is to add rate limiting for ARP packets that get punted to
> the controller. I agree that this should be implemented too.
>
> But I think rate limiting all ARP packets regardless of IP addresses
> is not enough. In the following scenario and if we would have a way to
> rate limit ARP packets:
> - Subnet 42.42.42.0/24 configured on the OVN
> - "Invalid" ARP packets are injected at high rate in the network for
41.41.41.41
> - Host 42.42.42.42 sends GARP.
> - Rate limiting of ARP packets towards controller at 100pps
>
> With the current code, ARP packets for 41.41.41.41 will be punted to
> controller at a rate of at most 100 per second. But the chances that
> the valid 42.42.42.42 GARP is dropped is really high.
>
> If we instead use the following approach:
> a. Punt only useful ARPs to controller.
> b. Rate limit ARPs that are sent to controller.
>
> Then ARP packets outside 42.42.42./24 are never punted to the
> controller and don't consume any rate limiting tokens. For the second
> case, when an attacker would flood with valid ARP packets we would
> have the rate limit in place to protect the controller CPU.
>
> My commit addresses point "a" above as I think point "b" should be
> done in a generic way for all protocol packets that need to reach the
> controller.
>
> For dynamic routing protocols on the other hand I think we should not
> install routes with next-hops that are unreachable through other
> direct or indirect routes.
>
> Thanks,
> Dumitru

I agree that blindly ARP rate limit is not helpful, but a) is not really
helpful in this case either. In your example, the attacker can just use any
valid IP in 42.42.42.0/24 to send GARP flooding, which would result in
exactly same result that a useful GARP from 42.42.42.42 is dropped because
of blindly rate limiting all ARPs. To solve the problem properly, the ARP
rate limiting must be done per IP.