[PATCH net-next] af_packet: remove BUG statement in tpacket_destruct_skb

[PATCH net-next] af_packet: remove BUG statement in tpacket_destruct_skb

[Daniel Borkmann]

Here's a quote of the comment about the BUG macro from asm-generic/bug.h:

 Don't use BUG() or BUG_ON() unless there's really no way out; one
 example might be detecting data structure corruption in the middle
 of an operation that can't be backed out of.  If the (sub)system
 can somehow continue operating, perhaps with reduced functionality,
 it's probably not BUG-worthy.

 If you're tempted to BUG(), think again:  is completely giving up
 really the *only* solution?  There are usually better options, where
 users don't need to reboot ASAP and can mostly shut down cleanly.

In our case, the status flag of a ring buffer slot is managed from both sides,
the kernel space and the user space. This means that even though the kernel
side might work as expected, the user space screws up and changes this flag
right between the send(2) is triggered when the flag is changed to
TP_STATUS_SENDING and a given skb is destructed after some time. Then, this
will hit the BUG macro. As David suggested, the best solution is to simply
remove this statement since it cannot be used for kernel side internal
consistency checks. I've tested it and the system still behaves /stable/ in
this case, so in accordance with the above comment, we should rather remove it.

Signed-off-by: Daniel Borkmann <daniel.borkmann@tik.ee.ethz.ch>
---
 net/packet/af_packet.c |    1 -
 1 files changed, 0 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)

diff --git a/net/packet/af_packet.c b/net/packet/af_packet.c
index ceaca7c..bbea24c 100644
--- a/net/packet/af_packet.c
+++ b/net/packet/af_packet.c
@@ -1936,7 +1936,6 @@ static void tpacket_destruct_skb(struct sk_buff *skb)
 
 	if (likely(po->tx_ring.pg_vec)) {
 		ph = skb_shinfo(skb)->destructor_arg;
-		BUG_ON(__packet_get_status(po, ph) != TP_STATUS_SENDING);
 		BUG_ON(atomic_read(&po->tx_ring.pending) == 0);
 		atomic_dec(&po->tx_ring.pending);
 		__packet_set_status(po, ph, TP_STATUS_AVAILABLE);

Re: [PATCH net-next] af_packet: remove BUG statement in tpacket_destruct_skb

[David Miller]

From: Daniel Borkmann <danborkmann@iogearbox.net>
Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2012 10:48:54 +0200

> Here's a quote of the comment about the BUG macro from asm-generic/bug.h:
> 
>  Don't use BUG() or BUG_ON() unless there's really no way out; one
>  example might be detecting data structure corruption in the middle
>  of an operation that can't be backed out of.  If the (sub)system
>  can somehow continue operating, perhaps with reduced functionality,
>  it's probably not BUG-worthy.
> 
>  If you're tempted to BUG(), think again:  is completely giving up
>  really the *only* solution?  There are usually better options, where
>  users don't need to reboot ASAP and can mostly shut down cleanly.
> 
> In our case, the status flag of a ring buffer slot is managed from both sides,
> the kernel space and the user space. This means that even though the kernel
> side might work as expected, the user space screws up and changes this flag
> right between the send(2) is triggered when the flag is changed to
> TP_STATUS_SENDING and a given skb is destructed after some time. Then, this
> will hit the BUG macro. As David suggested, the best solution is to simply
> remove this statement since it cannot be used for kernel side internal
> consistency checks. I've tested it and the system still behaves /stable/ in
> this case, so in accordance with the above comment, we should rather remove it.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Daniel Borkmann <daniel.borkmann@tik.ee.ethz.ch>

Applied.