Re: [PATCH net] netfilter: nf_conntrack: prevent uninit-value in gc_worker

[Florian Westphal <fw@strlen.de>]

Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@google.com> wrote:
> What should have been initialized it?

nf_ct_refresh_acct()

> I assume it should have been happened in between init_conntrack and
> nf_conntrack_confirm, because nf_conntrack_confirm already adds to an
> uninit timeout value.

Yes.

> Since we got only 3 such reports and no reproducer, I would suspect
> that there is some race involved. Is it possible that timeout
> initialization (presumably a call to nf_ct_refresh_acct) happens after
> and non-atomically with the corresponding connection state update, so
> that the call to nf_conntrack_confirm sneaks before it?

Unconfirmed conntrack isn't in the hash table, so all events should
occur in order on same cpu:
1. allocation (init_conntrack)
2. timeout initialisation (via l4 tracker, can be generic one too)
3. nf_conntrack_confirm (insertion in hash table)

What could be possible is that another core is registering/unregistering
the conntrack hooks in parallel, I guess in that case we could have:

1. allocation (init_conntrack)
(other cpu: remove conntrack hooks)
(other cpu: add conntrack hooks)
3. nf_conntrack_confirm (insertion in hash table)

Just a theory of course.
In any case patch looks good to me.