[PATCH] network: Fix a race condition when shutdown & start vm at the same time

Laine Stump laine at redhat.com
Fri Jun 19 16:19:05 UTC 2020


On 6/19/20 12:00 PM, Michal Privoznik wrote:
> On 6/17/20 1:46 AM, Laine Stump wrote:
>
>>
>> What do I think should be done? Good question. Possibly we could:
>>
>>
>> A) Call virNetDevTapReattachBridge() rather than 
>> virNetDevTapAttachBridge() in virNetDevTapCreateInBridgePort(). This 
>> would eliminate problem (2).
>>
>>
>> B) Instead of checking if the tap device MAC address matches, just 
>> call virNetDevExists() - if it exists, then skip the RemovePort() - 
>> this eliminates problems (3) and (4). (NB - this would fail if it 
>> turns out that tap device deletion isn't completed synchronously with 
>> qemu process termination!)
>>
>>
>> C) If we want to make it 100% sound, we need to make "check for 
>> interface existence + removeport" an atomic operation, and mutually 
>> exclusive with virNetDevTapCreate(). This would eliminate problem (1)
>>
>
> I still don't quite understand how there can be a race. I mean, from 
> system POV, libvirt creates a TAP, plugs it into a bridge (when 
> starting the first domain). And when shutting it down and starting the 
> second domain in parallel a new TAP device (with different index and 
> MAC) is created independent of the first TAP, no? 


Yes.


There's no problem with the tap device creation/deletion by itself. The 
problem is when that tap device is attached to an OVS switch. A "port" 
of the same name as the tap device is created in OVS, and that port 
continues to exist after the tap device itself is deleted. If a new tap 
device of the same name is created without first deleting the port from 
OVS, then the new tap device is automatically connected to the existing 
port of the same name (I don't know the exact details of how this is 
done, but OVS must have it's claws somewhere in the kernel or udev to 
make this happen, as I've seen it (and can reproduce it) myself).


Even that, by itself, isn't a problem. But if you have a tap device 
attached to an OVS port, and you delete the tap, that frees up the name 
so that the next time someone asks to create a tap device they get that 
same name. But if that happens before the old port has been removed from 
OVS (which is a separate operation), then the new tap device is attached 
to the old switch. In that case, simple requests to attach the new tap 
to a different switch (or a Linux bridge) will fail.


We solve that problem when the new tap is being attached to an OVS 
switch by prepending "--if-exists del-port blah" to the ovs-vsctl 
command that attaches to the new switch, but that doesn't help in the 
case that the new tap is being attached to a Linux host bridge.


Performing items (1) and (2) in my list will probably get rid of all bad 
behavior in practice, but there is still technically the possibility 
that the thread (B) for the new tap device will create that tap device 
after the thread (A) for the old tap device checks that the device 
doesn't exist (i.e. that a new tap with the same name hasn't yet been 
created) but before removing the port (of the same name) from the OVS 
switch.


This would all be much simpler if the kernel would put a "FIN WAIT" 
state on all tap device names so that they couldn't be re-used for a few 
seconds after deletion, but it doesn't, so we have to work with what 
we've got.





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