Re: TCP_USER_TIMEOUT, SYN-SENT and tcp_syn_retries

[Eric Dumazet <eric.dumazet@gmail.com>]

On 9/25/19 1:46 AM, Marek Majkowski wrote:
> Hello my favorite mailing list!
> 
> Recently I've been looking into TCP_USER_TIMEOUT and noticed some
> strange behaviour on fresh sockets in SYN-SENT state. Full writeup:
> https://blog.cloudflare.com/when-tcp-sockets-refuse-to-die/
> 
> Here's a reproducer. It does a simple thing: sets TCP_USER_TIMEOUT and
> does connect() to a blackholed IP:
> 
> $ wget https://gist.githubusercontent.com/majek/b4ad53c5795b226d62fad1fa4a87151a/raw/cbb928cb99cd6c5aa9f73ba2d3bc0aef22fbc2bf/user-timeout-and-syn.py
> 
> $ sudo python3 user-timeout-and-syn.py
> 00:00.000000 IP 192.1.1.1.52974 > 244.0.0.1.1234: Flags [S]
> 00:01.007053 IP 192.1.1.1.52974 > 244.0.0.1.1234: Flags [S]
> 00:03.023051 IP 192.1.1.1.52974 > 244.0.0.1.1234: Flags [S]
> 00:05.007096 IP 192.1.1.1.52974 > 244.0.0.1.1234: Flags [S]
> 00:05.015037 IP 192.1.1.1.52974 > 244.0.0.1.1234: Flags [S]
> 00:05.023020 IP 192.1.1.1.52974 > 244.0.0.1.1234: Flags [S]
> 00:05.034983 IP 192.1.1.1.52974 > 244.0.0.1.1234: Flags [S]
> 
> The connect() times out with ETIMEDOUT after 5 seconds - as intended.
> But Linux (5.3.0-rc3) does something weird on the network - it sends
> remaining tcp_syn_retries packets aligned to the 5s mark.
> 
> In other words: with TCP_USER_TIMEOUT we are sending spurious SYN
> packets on a timeout.
> 
> For the record, the man page doesn't define what TCP_USER_TIMEOUT does
> on SYN-SENT state.
> 

Exactly, so far this option has only be used on established flows.

Feel free to send patches if you need to override the stack behavior
for connection establishment (Same remark for passive side...)

Thanks.