possible race condition in qemu nat layer or virtio-net

[g1pi@libero.it]

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Hi all.

I believe I spotted a race condition in virtio-net or qemu/kvm (but
only when virtio-net is involved).

To replicate, one needs a virtualization environment similar to

Host:
- debian 12 x86_64, kernel 6.1.0-18-amd64
- caching name server listening on 127.0.0.1
- qemu version 7.2.9 (Debian 1:7.2+dfsg-7+deb12u5)
- command line:
    qemu-system-x86_64 \
	-enable-kvm \
	-daemonize \
	-parallel none \
	-serial none \
	-m 256 \
	-drive if=virtio,format=raw,file=void.raw \
	-monitor unix:run/void.mon,server,nowait \
	-nic user,model=virtio,hostfwd=tcp:127.0.0.1:3822-:22

Guest:
- x86_64, linux/musl or linux/glibc or freebsd or openbsd
- /etc/resolv.conf:
    nameserver 10.0.2.2         i.e. the caching dns in the host
    nameserver 192.168.1.123    non existent

and run the attached program in the guest.

The program opens a UDP socket, sends out a bunch of (dns) requests,
poll()s on the socket, and then receives the responses.

If a delay is inserted between the sendto() calls, the (unique) response
from the host is received correctly:

    $ ./a.out 10.0.2.2 >/dev/null # to warm up the host cache
    $ ./a.out 10.0.2.2 delay 192.168.1.123
    poll: 1 1 1
    recvfrom() 45
    <response packet>
    recvfrom() -1

If the sento()s are performed in short order, the response packet
gets lost:

    $ ./a.out 10.0.2.2 >/dev/null # to warm up the host cache
    $ ./a.out 10.0.2.2 192.168.1.123
    poll: 0 1 0
    recvfrom() -1
    recvfrom() -1

A tcpdump capture on the host side shows no difference between the two cases.

Tcpdump on the guest side is another story: in the good case, it looks like
this

7:32:44.332 IP 10.0.2.15.43276 > 10.0.2.2.53: 33452+ A? example.com. (29)
7:32:44.333 IP 10.0.2.2.53 > 10.0.2.15.43276: 33452 1/0/0 A 93.184.216.34 (45)
7:32:44.349 IP 10.0.2.15.43276 > 192.168.1.123.53: 33452+ A? example.com. (29)

while in the bad case it looks like this

7:32:55.358 IP 10.0.2.15.46537 > 10.0.2.2.53: 33452+ A? example.com. (29)
7:32:55.358 IP 10.0.2.15.46537 > 192.168.1.123.53: 33452+ A? example.com. (29)
7:32:55.358 IP *127.0.0.1*.53 > 10.0.2.15.46537: 33452 1/0/0 A 93.184.216.34 (45)

where the response packet has wrong src ip.

Looks like a failure of the NAT layer, but it does not happen when
the guest uses another emulated network driver: don't know whether it's
because the relevant code is in virtio-net or because other drivers add
overhead that masks the issue.

There's nothing special in port 53: I was just investigating
a weird failure in name resolution in a MUSL based guest
(https://www.openwall.com/lists/musl/2024/02/17/3) and wrote the program
to mimic MUSL resolver's behaviour.

But it succeeds/fails consistently with a different port, and in all
guests I tried (as long as the emulated network device is virtio-net).

To see the issue, it's important that the response to the first request
is so fast that it's simultaneous with the second request: that's the reason
behind the caching nameserver in the host.

I also opened a bug report to debian
(https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1064634).

I'm not subscribed to qemu-devel, so please CC me in replies.

Best regards,
        g.b.

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#include <stdio.h>
#include <time.h>
#include <poll.h>
#include <assert.h>
#include <string.h>

#include <arpa/inet.h>
#include <netdb.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <sys/types.h>

static void dump(const char *s, size_t len) {
    while (len--) {
        char t = *s++;
        if (' ' <= t && t <= '~' && t != '\\')
            printf("%c", t);
        else
            printf("\\%o", t & 0xff);
    }
    printf("\n");
}

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
    int sock, rv, n;
    const char req[] =
        "\202\254\1\0\0\1\0\0\0\0\0\0\7example\3com\0\0\1\0\1";
    struct timespec delay_l = { 1, 0 }; /* 1 sec */
    struct pollfd pfs;
    struct sockaddr_in me = { 0 };

    sock = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM | SOCK_CLOEXEC | SOCK_NONBLOCK,
                  IPPROTO_IP);
    assert(sock >= 0);

    me.sin_family = AF_INET;
    me.sin_port = 0;
    me.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr("0.0.0.0");
    rv = bind(sock, (struct sockaddr *) &me, sizeof me);
    assert(0 == rv);

    for (n = 1; n < argc; n++) {
        if (0 == strcmp("delay", argv[n])) {
            struct timespec delay_s = { 0, (1 << 24) }; /* ~ 16 msec */
            nanosleep(&delay_s, NULL);
        } else {
            struct sockaddr_in dst = { 0 };
            dst.sin_family = AF_INET;
            dst.sin_port = htons(53);
            dst.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr(argv[n]);
            rv = sendto(sock, req, sizeof req - 1, MSG_NOSIGNAL,
                        (struct sockaddr *) &dst, sizeof dst);
            assert(rv >= 0);
        }
    }

    nanosleep(&delay_l, NULL);
    pfs.fd = sock;
    pfs.events = POLLIN;
    rv = poll(&pfs, 1, 2000);
    printf("poll: %d %d %d\n", rv, pfs.events, pfs.revents);

    for (n = 1; n < argc; n++) {
        char resp[4000];
        if (0 == strcmp("delay", argv[n]))
            continue;
        rv = recvfrom(sock, resp, sizeof resp, 0, NULL, NULL);
        printf("recvfrom() %d\n", rv);
        if (rv > 0)
            dump(resp, rv);
    }

    return 0;
}