Commit 42726ec6 authored by Jiayuan Chen's avatar Jiayuan Chen Committed by Jakub Kicinski
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tcp: send a challenge ACK on SEG.ACK > SND.NXT 



RFC 5961 Section 5.2 validates an incoming segment's ACK value
against the range [SND.UNA - MAX.SND.WND, SND.NXT] and states:

  "All incoming segments whose ACK value doesn't satisfy the above
   condition MUST be discarded and an ACK sent back."

Commit 354e4aa3 ("tcp: RFC 5961 5.2 Blind Data Injection Attack
Mitigation") opted Linux into this mitigation and implements the
challenge ACK on the lower side (SEG.ACK < SND.UNA - MAX.SND.WND),
but the symmetric upper side (SEG.ACK > SND.NXT) still takes the
pre-RFC-5961 path and silently returns
SKB_DROP_REASON_TCP_ACK_UNSENT_DATA, even though RFC 793 Section 3.9
(now RFC 9293 Section 3.10.7.4) has always required:

  "If the ACK acknowledges something not yet sent (SEG.ACK > SND.NXT)
   then send an ACK, drop the segment, and return."

Complete the mitigation by sending a challenge ACK on that branch,
reusing the existing tcp_send_challenge_ack() path which already
enforces the per-socket RFC 5961 Section 7 rate limit via
__tcp_oow_rate_limited().  FLAG_NO_CHALLENGE_ACK is honoured for
symmetry with the lower-edge case.

Update the existing tcp_ts_recent_invalid_ack.pkt selftest, which
drives this exact path, to consume the new challenge ACK.

Fixes: 354e4aa3 ("tcp: RFC 5961 5.2 Blind Data Injection Attack Mitigation")
Signed-off-by: default avatarJiayuan Chen <jiayuan.chen@linux.dev>
Reviewed-by: default avatarEric Dumazet <edumazet@google.com>
Link: https://patch.msgid.link/20260422123605.320000-2-jiayuan.chen@linux.dev


Signed-off-by: default avatarJakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>
parent 4078c561

net/ipv4/tcp_input.c

+7 −3
Original line number Diff line number Diff line
@@ -4286,11 +4286,15 @@ static int tcp_ack(struct sock *sk, const struct sk_buff *skb, int flag) 
		goto old_ack;

	}



	/* If the ack includes data we haven't sent yet, discard

	 * this segment (RFC793 Section 3.9).

	/* If the ack includes data we haven't sent yet, drop the

	 * segment.  RFC 793 Section 3.9 and RFC 5961 Section 5.2

	 * require us to send an ACK back in that case.

	 */

	if (after(ack, tp->snd_nxt))

	if (after(ack, tp->snd_nxt)) {

		if (!(flag & FLAG_NO_CHALLENGE_ACK))

			tcp_send_challenge_ack(sk, false);

		return -SKB_DROP_REASON_TCP_ACK_UNSENT_DATA;

	}



	if (after(ack, prior_snd_una)) {

		flag |= FLAG_SND_UNA_ADVANCED;

tools/testing/selftests/net/packetdrill/tcp_ts_recent_invalid_ack.pkt

+3 −1
Original line number Diff line number Diff line
@@ -19,7 +19,9 @@ 


// bad packet with high tsval (its ACK sequence is above our sndnxt)

   +0 < F. 1:1(0) ack 9999 win 20000 <nop,nop,TS val 200000 ecr 100>



// Challenge ACK for SEG.ACK > SND.NXT (RFC 5961 5.2 / RFC 793 3.9).

// ecr=200 (not 200000) proves ts_recent was not updated from the bad packet.

   +0 > . 1:1(0) ack 1 <nop,nop,TS val 200 ecr 200>



   +0 < . 1:1001(1000) ack 1 win 20000 <nop,nop,TS val 201 ecr 100>

   +0 > . 1:1(0) ack 1001 <nop,nop,TS val 200 ecr 201>