sock = socket(AF_PACKET, SOCK_RAW, htons(ETH_P_ALL));
setsockopt(sock, SOL_SOCKET, SO_ATTACH_FILTER, &f, sizeof (f))
With this simple BPF/LPF attach code, when I try to receive packet on the socket, will get some wrong packets that doesn't match with the filter. Seems those packets got into the socket before I call setsockopt().
Seems like should first create the AF_PACKET SOCK_RAW socket, then attach the filter, then flush the socket to get rid of those wrong packets.
So the question is, how to flush those packet?
The "bug" you're describing is real and I've seen it at multiple companies in my career. There is something like an "oral tradition" around this bug that is passed from one network engineer to another. Here are the common fixes:
Just call recv on the socket until it is empty
Double-filter by filtering packets in usermode as well as using the bpf
Use the zero-bpf technique just like libpcap where you apply an empty bpf first, then empty the socket, and then apply the real bpf.
I've written about this problem extensively on my blog to try and codify the oral tradition around this bug into a concrete recommendation and best-practice.
Related
As it is implied by this question, it seems that checksum is calculated and verified by ethernet hardware, so it seems highly unlikely that it must be generated by software when sending frames using an AF_PACKET socket, as seem here and here. Also, I don't think it can be received from the socket nor by any simple mean, since even Wireshark doesn't display it.
So, can anyone confirm this? Do I really need to send the checksum myself as shown in the last two links? Will checksum be created and checked automatically by the ethernet adaptor?
No, you do not need to include the CRC.
When using a packet socket in Linux using socket(AF_PACKET, SOCK_RAW, htons(ETH_P_ALL) ), you must provide the layer 2 header when sending. This is defined by struct ether_header in netinet/if_ether.h and includes the destination host, source host, and type. The frame check sequence is not included, nor is the preamble, start of frame delimiter, or trailer. These are added by the hardware.
On Linux, if you mention socket(AF_PACKET, SOCK_RAW, htobe16(ETH_P_ALL)) similar case, you don't need to calculate ethernet checksum, NIC hardware/driver will do it for you. That means you need to offer whole data link layer frame except checksum before send it to raw socket.
According to this, wireshark is able to get the packet before it is dropped (therefore I cannot get such packets by myself). And I'm still wondering the exact location in linux kernel for wireshark to fetch the packets.
The answer goes as "On UN*Xes, it uses libpcap, which, on Linux, uses AF_PACKET sockets." Does anyone have more concrete example to use "AF_PACKET sockets"? If I understand wireshark correctly, the network interface card (NIC) will make a copy of all incoming packets and send it to a filter (berkeley packet filter) defined by the user. But where does this happen? Or am I wrong with that understanding and do I miss anything here?
Thanks in advance!
But where does this happen?
If I understood you correctly - you want to know, where is initialized such socket.
There is pcap_create function, that tries to determine type of source interface, creates duplicate of it and activates it.
For network see pcap_create_interface function => pcap_create_common function => pcap_activate_linux function.
All initialization happens in pcap_activate_linux => activate_new function => iface_bind function
( copy descriptor of device with handlep->device = strdup(device);,
create socket with socket(PF_PACKET, SOCK_DGRAM, htons(ETH_P_ALL)),
bind socket to device with bind(fd, (struct sockaddr *) &sll, sizeof(sll)) ).
For more detailed information read comments in source files of mentioned functions - they are very detailed.
After initialization all work happens in a group of functions such as pcap_read_linux, etc.
On Linux, you should be able to simply use tcpdump (which leverages the libpcap library) to do this. This can be done with a file or to STDOUT and you specify the filter at the end of the tcpdump command..
I have a network client which is stuck in recvfrom a server not under my control which, after 24+ hours, is probably never going to respond. The program has processed a great deal of data, so I don't want to kill it; I want it to abandon the current connection and proceed. (It will do so correctly if recvfrom returns EOF or -1.) I have already tried several different programs that purport to be able to disconnect stale TCP channels by forging RSTs (tcpkill, cutter, killcx); none had any effect, the program remained stuck in recvfrom. I have also tried taking the network interface down; again, no effect.
It seems to me that there really should be a way to force a disconnect at the socket-API level without forging network packets. I do not mind horrible hacks, up to and including poking kernel data structures by hand; this is a disaster-recovery situation. Any suggestions?
(For clarity, the TCP channel at issue here is in ESTABLISHED state according to lsof.)
I do not mind horrible hacks
That's all you have to say. I am guessing the tools you tried didn't work because they sniff traffic to get an acceptable ACK number to kill the connection. Without traffic flowing they have no way to get hold of it.
Here are things you can try:
Probe all the sequence numbers
Where those tools failed you can still do it. Make a simple python script and with scapy, for each sequence number send a RST segment with the correct 4-tuple (ports and addresses). There's at most 4 billion (actually fewer assuming a decent window - you can find out the window for free using ss -i).
Make a kernel module to get hold of the socket
Make a kernel module getting a list of TCP sockets: look for sk_nulls_for_each(sk, node, &tcp_hashinfo.ehash[i].chain)
Identify your victim sk
At this point you intimately have access to your socket. So
You can call tcp_reset or tcp_disconnect on it. You won't be able to call tcp_reset directly (since it doesn't have EXPORT_SYMBOL) but you should be able to mimic it: most of the functions it calls are exported
Or you can get the expected ACK number from tcp_sk(sk) and directly forge a RST packet with scapy
Here is function I use to print established sockets - I scrounged bits and pieces from the kernel to make it some time ago:
#include <net/inet_hashtables.h>
#define NIPQUAD(addr) \
((unsigned char *)&addr)[0], \
((unsigned char *)&addr)[1], \
((unsigned char *)&addr)[2], \
((unsigned char *)&addr)[3]
#define NIPQUAD_FMT "%u.%u.%u.%u"
extern struct inet_hashinfo tcp_hashinfo;
/* Decides whether a bucket has any sockets in it. */
static inline bool empty_bucket(int i)
{
return hlist_nulls_empty(&tcp_hashinfo.ehash[i].chain);
}
void print_tcp_socks(void)
{
int i = 0;
struct inet_sock *inet;
/* Walk hash array and lock each if not empty. */
printk("Established ---\n");
for (i = 0; i <= tcp_hashinfo.ehash_mask; i++) {
struct sock *sk;
struct hlist_nulls_node *node;
spinlock_t *lock = inet_ehash_lockp(&tcp_hashinfo, i);
/* Lockless fast path for the common case of empty buckets */
if (empty_bucket(i))
continue;
spin_lock_bh(lock);
sk_nulls_for_each(sk, node, &tcp_hashinfo.ehash[i].chain) {
if (sk->sk_family != PF_INET)
continue;
inet = inet_sk(sk);
printk(NIPQUAD_FMT":%hu ---> " NIPQUAD_FMT
":%hu\n", NIPQUAD(inet->inet_saddr),
ntohs(inet->inet_sport), NIPQUAD(inet->inet_daddr),
ntohs(inet->inet_dport));
}
spin_unlock_bh(lock);
}
}
You should be able to pop this into a simple "Hello World" module and after insmoding it, in dmesg you will see sockets (much like ss or netstat).
I understand that what you want to do it's to automatize the process to make a test. But if you just want to check the correct handling of the recvfrom error, you could attach with the GDB and close the fd with close() call.
Here you could see an example.
Another option is to use scapy for crafting propper RST packets (which is not in your list). This is the way I tested the connections RST in a bridged system (IMHO is the best option), you could also implement a graceful shutdown.
Here an example of the scapy script.
As it is implied by this question, it seems that checksum is calculated and verified by ethernet hardware, so it seems highly unlikely that it must be generated by software when sending frames using an AF_PACKET socket, as seem here and here. Also, I don't think it can be received from the socket nor by any simple mean, since even Wireshark doesn't display it.
So, can anyone confirm this? Do I really need to send the checksum myself as shown in the last two links? Will checksum be created and checked automatically by the ethernet adaptor?
No, you do not need to include the CRC.
When using a packet socket in Linux using socket(AF_PACKET, SOCK_RAW, htons(ETH_P_ALL) ), you must provide the layer 2 header when sending. This is defined by struct ether_header in netinet/if_ether.h and includes the destination host, source host, and type. The frame check sequence is not included, nor is the preamble, start of frame delimiter, or trailer. These are added by the hardware.
On Linux, if you mention socket(AF_PACKET, SOCK_RAW, htobe16(ETH_P_ALL)) similar case, you don't need to calculate ethernet checksum, NIC hardware/driver will do it for you. That means you need to offer whole data link layer frame except checksum before send it to raw socket.
I am currently running an old system on Tru64 which involves lots of UDP sockets using the sendto() function. The sockets are used in our code to send messages to/from various processes and then eventually on to a thick client app that is connected remotely. Occasionally the socket to the thick client gets stuck, this can cause some of these messages to get built up. My question is how can I determine the current buffer size, and how do I determine the maximum message buffer. The code below gives a snippet of how I set up the port and use the sendto function.
/* need to adjust the maximum size we can send on this */
/* as it needs to be able to cope with the biggest */
/* messages we send */
lenlen = sizeof(len) ;
/* allow double for when the system is under load */
int lenlen, len ;
lenlen = sizeof(len) ;
len = 2 * 32000;
msg_socket = socket( AF_UNIX,SOCK_DGRAM, 0);
result = setsockopt(msg_socket, SOL_SOCKET, SO_SNDBUF, (char *)&len, lenlen) ;
result = sendto( msg_socket,
(char *)message,
(int)message_len,
flags,
dest_addr,
addrlen);
Note. We have ported this application to Linux and the problem does not seem to appear there.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Regards
UDP send buffer size is different from TCP - it just limits the size of the datagram. Quoting Stevens UNP Vol. 1:
...
A UDP socket has a send buffer size (which we can change with SO_SNDBUF socket option, Section 7.5), but this is simply an upper limit on the maximum-sized UDP datagram that can be written to the socket. If an application writes a datagram larger than the socket send buffer size, EMSGSIZE is returned. Since UDP is unreliable, it does not need to keep a copy of the application's data and does not need an actual send buffer. (The application data is normally copied into a kernel buffer of some form as it passes down the protocol stack, but this copy is discarded by the datalink layer after the data is transmitted.)
UDP simply prepends 8-byte header and passes the datagram to IP. IPv4 or IPv6 prepends its header, determines the outgoing interface by performing the routing function, and then either adds the datagram to the datalink output queue (if it fits within the MTU) or fragments the datagram and adds each fragment to the datalink output queue. If a UDO application sends large datagrams (say 2,000-byte datagrams), there's a much higher probability of fragmentation than with TCP. because TCP breaks the application data into MSS-sized chunks, something that has no counterpart in UDP.
The successful return from write to a UDP socket tells us that either the datagram or all fragments of the datagram have been added to the datalink output queue. If there is no room on the queue for the datagram or one of its fragments, ENOBUFS is often returned to the application.
Unfortunately, some implementations do not return this error, giving the application no indication that the datagram was discarded without even being transmitted.
The last footnote needs attention - but it looks like Tru64 has this error code listed in the manual page.
The proper way of doing it though is to queue your outstanding messages in the application itself and to carefully check return values and the errno after each system call. This still does not guarantee delivery (since UDP receivers might drop the packets without any notice to the senders). Check the UDP packet discard counters with netstat -s on both/all sides, see if they are growing. There is really no way around this besides switching to TCP or implementing your own timeout/ack and re-transmission logic.
You should probably be using some sort of congestion control to avoid overloading the network. By far the easiest way to do this is to use TCP instead of UDP.
It fails less often on Linux because UDP sockets wait for space in the local network interface queue on Linux (unless you set them non-blocking). However, with any operating system, if the overfull queue is not in the local system, the packet will be dropped silently.