Re: [PATCH] net/mlx5: remove nonsensical flow action class_id checks

[Raslan Darawsheh <rasland@nvidia.com>]

Hi,


On 20/05/2026 4:25 PM, Adrian Schollmeyer wrote:
> From: Michael Pfeiffer <m.pfeiffer@syseleven.de>
> 
> For a MODIFY_FIELD action, flow_hw_validate_action_modify_field() is
> invoked and enforces class_id == 0 in the action's source and
> destination, if the modified field is none of
> RTE_FLOW_FIELD_GENEVE_OPT_*, as the value is used solely for GENEVE
> fields.
> 
> However, this check is flawed due to the way rte_flow_field_data is
> initialized. As it consists of unions and anonymous structs as members,
> empty initialization of this struct or initializing just the tag_index
> only guarantees initialization of the first union member, while the
> remaining member's default initialization behavior is unspecified.
> Therefore, depending on the compiler type, version and configuration,
> the remaining members may either be default-initialized as well or
> contain bytes from uninitialized memory. This causes the check to fail
> depending on how the struct is initialized wherever it is used.
> 
> For example, rte_flow_configure() sometimes fails on mlx5 under these
> circumstances with an error "destination class id is not supported"
> during creation of representor tagging rules, as these internally use
> MODIFY_FIELD actions in the following call stack:
> 
>    1. rte_flow_configure
>    2. mlx5_flow_port_configure
>    3. flow_hw_configure
>    4. __flow_hw_configure
>    5. flow_hw_setup_tx_repr_tagging
>    6. flow_hw_create_tx_repr_tag_jump_acts_tmpl
>       --> various rte_flow_action_modify_field are initialized here, but
>           class_id remains uninitialized
>    7. __flow_hw_actions_template_create
>    8. mlx5_flow_hw_actions_validate
>    9. flow_hw_validate_action_modify_field
>       --> invoked with class_id containing uninitialized bytes and
>           non-GENEVE field type
> 
> Remove the two checks for class_id in the non-GENEVE case, as this field
> is unused for these actions and avoids additional implicit dependencies
> on the correct ordering of union members.
> 
> Fixes: 1caa89ec1891 ("net/mlx5: support GENEVE options modification")
> Cc: stable@dpdk.org
> 
> Signed-off-by: Michael Pfeiffer <m.pfeiffer@syseleven.de>
> Signed-off-by: Adrian Schollmeyer <a.schollmeyer@syseleven.de>

Patch applied to next-net-mlx,

Kindest regards
Raslan Darawsheh