NUD_STALE is used when the caller(e.g. arp_process()) can't guarantee neighbour reachability. If the entry was NUD_VALID and lladdr is unchanged, the entry state should not be changed.
Currently the code puts an extra "NUD_CONNECTED" condition. So if old state was NUD_DELAY or NUD_PROBE (they are NUD_VALID but not NUD_CONNECTED), the state can be changed to NUD_STALE. This may cause problem. Because NUD_STALE lladdr doesn't guarantee reachability, when we send traffic, the state will be changed to NUD_DELAY. In normal case, if we get no confirmation (by dst_confirm()), we will change the state to NUD_PROBE and send probe traffic. But now the state may be reset to NUD_STALE again(e.g. by broadcast ARP packets), so the probe traffic will not be sent. This situation may happen again and again, and packets will be sent to an non-reachable lladdr forever. The fix is to remove the "NUD_CONNECTED" condition. After that the "NEIGH_UPDATE_F_WEAK_OVERRIDE" condition (used by IPv6) in that branch will be redundant, so remove it. This change may increase probe traffic, but it's essential since NUD_STALE lladdr is unreliable. To ensure correctness, we prefer to resolve lladdr, when we can't get confirmation, even while remote packets try to set NUD_STALE state. Signed-off-by: Chunhui He <hchun...@mail.ustc.edu.cn> --- v2: - change title from "net: neigh: disallow state transition DELAY->STALE in neigh_update()" - remove "NUD_CONNECTED" condition instead of "NUD_CONNECTED | NUD_DELAY" - remove "NEIGH_UPDATE_F_WEAK_OVERRIDE" condition --- net/core/neighbour.c | 7 +------ 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 6 deletions(-) diff --git a/net/core/neighbour.c b/net/core/neighbour.c index 510cd62..ed8c317e 100644 --- a/net/core/neighbour.c +++ b/net/core/neighbour.c @@ -1060,8 +1060,6 @@ static void neigh_update_hhs(struct neighbour *neigh) NEIGH_UPDATE_F_WEAK_OVERRIDE will suspect existing "connected" lladdr instead of overriding it if it is different. - It also allows to retain current state - if lladdr is unchanged. NEIGH_UPDATE_F_ADMIN means that the change is administrative. NEIGH_UPDATE_F_OVERRIDE_ISROUTER allows to override existing @@ -1150,10 +1148,7 @@ int neigh_update(struct neighbour *neigh, const u8 *lladdr, u8 new, } else goto out; } else { - if (lladdr == neigh->ha && new == NUD_STALE && - ((flags & NEIGH_UPDATE_F_WEAK_OVERRIDE) || - (old & NUD_CONNECTED)) - ) + if (lladdr == neigh->ha && new == NUD_STALE) new = old; } } -- 2.1.4