[ovs-dev] [PATCH net-next v2] net: openvswitch: IPv6: Add IPv6 extension header support

[Ilya Maximets]

On 5/24/21 8:57 PM, Cpp Code wrote:
> Yes, these changes only works together with changes in userspace. I
> believe in any solution there should be corresponding changes in
> userspace. If we would be able to easily run old version of userspace
> with these changes in kernel without userspace complaining about
> struct size, we could get in to a situation with hard to find bugs.

You can't modify existing binaries and we can't expect that everyone
will get new version of OVS along with the kernel update.  Existing
binaries should work fine with any version of underlying kernel.
With this change applied, kernel will not be able to parse
OVS_KEY_ATTR_IPV6 sent from userspace by the older OVS and this OVS
will not be able to correctly parse netlink messages sent by the
kernel.

> 
> I don't agree with the solution of a new struct key as semantically
> ipv6 extension headers are integral part of every ipv6 packet thus
> expected to be in the struct along with label, for example. Correct if
> I am missing something.

Even though ipv6 extensions are part of ipv6, they never was part of
the user interface here.  I agree that original design of this structure
was not perfect, but breaking of the user interface, i.e. breaking all
the existing OVS binaries, is just not acceptable.

> 
> On Wed, May 19, 2021 at 2:52 AM Ilya Maximets <i.maximets at ovn.org> wrote:
>>
>> On 5/17/21 5:20 PM, Toms Atteka wrote:
>>> IPv6 extension headers carry optional internet layer information
>>> and are placed between the fixed header and the upper-layer
>>> protocol header.
>>>
>>> This change adds a new OpenFlow field OFPXMT_OFB_IPV6_EXTHDR and
>>> packets can be filtered using ipv6_ext flag.
>>>
>>> Tested-at: https://github.com/TomCodeLV/ovs/actions/runs/504185214
>>> Signed-off-by: Toms Atteka <cpp.code.lv at gmail.com>
>>> ---
>>>  include/uapi/linux/openvswitch.h |   1 +
>>>  net/openvswitch/flow.c           | 141 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>>>  net/openvswitch/flow.h           |  14 +++
>>>  net/openvswitch/flow_netlink.c   |   5 +-
>>>  4 files changed, 160 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
>>>
>>>
>>> base-commit: 5d869070569a23aa909c6e7e9d010fc438a492ef
>>>
>>> diff --git a/include/uapi/linux/openvswitch.h b/include/uapi/linux/openvswitch.h
>>> index 8d16744edc31..a19812b6631a 100644
>>> --- a/include/uapi/linux/openvswitch.h
>>> +++ b/include/uapi/linux/openvswitch.h
>>> @@ -420,6 +420,7 @@ struct ovs_key_ipv6 {
>>>       __u8   ipv6_tclass;
>>>       __u8   ipv6_hlimit;
>>>       __u8   ipv6_frag;       /* One of OVS_FRAG_TYPE_*. */
>>> +     __u16  ipv6_exthdr;
>>>  };
>>
>> Wouldn't this break existing userspace?  Curent OVS expects netlink
>> message with attribute size equal to the old version of 'struct ovs_key_ipv6'
>> and it will discard OVS_KEY_ATTR_IPV6 as malformed.
>>
>> This should likely be a completely new structure and a completely new
>> OVS_KEY_ATTR.
>>
>> Best regards, Ilya Maximets.