On 1/29/2025 1:25 PM, Matthieu Baerts wrote:
Hi Mikhail,
On 29/01/2025 10:52, Mikhail Ivanov wrote:
On 1/28/2025 9:14 PM, Matthieu Baerts wrote:
Hi Mikhail,
Sorry, I didn't follow all the discussions in this thread, but here are
some comments, hoping this can help to clarify the MPTCP case.
Thanks a lot for sharing your knowledge, Matthieu!
On 28/01/2025 11:56, Mikhail Ivanov wrote:
On 1/27/2025 10:48 PM, Mickaël Salaün wrote:
(...)
I'm a bit worried that we miss some of these places (now or in future
kernel versions). We'll need a new LSM hook for that.
Could you list the current locations?
Currently, I know only about TCP-related transformations:
* SMC can fallback to TCP during connection. TCP connection is used
(1) to exchange CLC control messages in default case and (2) for the
communication in the case of fallback. If socket was connected or
connection failed, socket can not be reconnected again. There is no
existing security hook to control the fallback case,
* MPTCP uses TCP for communication between two network interfaces in the
default case and can fallback to plain TCP if remote peer does not
support MPTCP. AFAICS, there is also no security hook to control the
fallback transformation,
There are security hooks to control the path creation, but not to
control the "fallback transformation".
Technically, with MPTCP, the userspace will create an IPPROTO_MPTCP
socket. This is only used "internally": to communicate between the
userspace and the kernelspace, but not directly used between network
interfaces. This "external" communication is done via one or multiple
kernel TCP sockets carrying extra TCP options for the mapping. The
userspace cannot directly control these sockets created by the kernel.
In case of fallback, the kernel TCP socket "simply" drop the extra TCP
options needed for MPTCP, and carry on like normal TCP. So on the wire
and in the Linux network stack, it is the same TCP connection, without
the MPTCP options in the TCP header. The userspace continue to
communicate with the same socket.
I'm not sure if there is a need to block the fallback: it means only one
path can be used at a time.
You mean that users always rely on a plain TCP communication in the case
the connection of MPTCP multipath communication fails?
Yes, that's the same TCP connection, just without extra bit to be able
to use multiple TCP connections associated to the same MPTCP one.
Indeed, so MPTCP communication should be restricted the same way as TCP.
AFAICS this should be intuitive for MPTCP users and it'll be better
to let userland define this dependency.
* IPv6 -> IPv4 transformation for TCP and UDP sockets withon
IPV6_ADDRFORM. Can be controlled with setsockopt() security hook.
As I said before, I wonder if user may want to use SMC or MPTCP and deny
TCP communication, since he should rely on fallback transformation
during the connection in the common case. It may be unexpected for
connect(2) to fail during the fallback due to security politics.
With MPTCP, fallbacks can happen at the beginning of a connection, when
there is only one path. This is done after the userspace's connect(). If
the fallback is blocked, I guess the userspace will get the same errors
as when an open connection is reset.
In the case of blocking due to security policy, userspace should get
-EACESS. I mean, the user might not expect the fallback path to be
blocked during the connection if he has allowed only MPTCP communication
using the Landlock policy.
A "fallback" can happen on different occasions as mentioned in the
RFC8684 [1], e.g.
- The client asks to use MPTCP, but the other peer doesn't support it:
Client Server
| SYN + MP_CAPABLE |
|------------------------->|
| SYN/ACK |
|<-------------------------| => Fallback on the client side
| ACK |
|------------------------->|
- A middle box doesn't touch the 3WHS, but intercept the communication
just after:
Client Server
| SYN + MP_CAPABLE |
|------------------------->|
| SYN/ACK + MP_CAPABLE |
|<-------------------------|
| ACK + MP_CAPABLE |
|------------------------->|
| DSS + data | => but the server doesn't receive the DSS
|------------------------->| => So fallback on the server side
| ACK |
|<-------------------------| => Fallback on the client side
- etc.
So the connect(), even in blocking mode, can be OK, but the "fallback"
will happen later.
Thanks! Theoretical "socket transformation" control should cover all
these cases.
You mean that it might be reasonable for a Landlock policy to block
MPTCP fallback when establishing first sublflow (when client does not
receive MP_CAPABLE)?
Again, once the "fallback" has been done, it just means there will be no
more MPTCP options in the TCP headers, and these TCP connections,
created and controlled by the kernel, will continue as "plain" TCP
connections. It simply means that the MPTCP connection will be
restricted to one path, because it will not be possible to create
additional paths any more without these MPTCP options in the initial path.
Correct, thanks
[1] https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc8684#name-fallback
(Note that on the listener side, the fallback can happen before the
userspace's accept() which can even get an IPPROTO_TCP socket in return)
Indeed, fallback can happen on a server side as well.
Same here, this fallback can happen at different stages of the
connection, e.g. the server, supporting MPTCP, can receive a SYN without
MP_CAPABLE option ; or the 3WHS is OK, but the MPTCP options are
stripped later.
Theoretically, any TCP restriction should cause similar SMC and MPTCP
restriction. If we deny creation of TCP sockets, we should also deny
creation of SMC and MPTCP sockets. I thought that such dependencies may
be too complex and it will be better to leave them for the user and not
provide any transformation control at all. What do you think?
I guess the creation of "kernel" TCP sockets used by MPTCP (and SMC?)
can be restricted, it depends on where this hook is placed I suppose.
Calling
socket(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_MPTCP)
causes creation of kernel TCP socket, so we can use
security_socket_create() hook for this purpose.
That's good if you use this hook then!
Cheers,
Matt
