tcp: add rfc3168, section 6.1.1.1. fallback

This work as a follow-up of commit f7b3bec6f516 ("net: allow setting ecn
via routing table") and adds RFC3168 section 6.1.1.1. fallback for outgoing
ECN connections. In other words, this work adds a retry with a non-ECN
setup SYN packet, as suggested from the RFC on the first timeout:

  [...] A host that receives no reply to an ECN-setup SYN within the
  normal SYN retransmission timeout interval MAY resend the SYN and
  any subsequent SYN retransmissions with CWR and ECE cleared. [...]

Schematic client-side view when assuming the server is in tcp_ecn=2 mode,
that is, Linux default since 2009 via commit 255cac91c3c9 ("tcp: extend
ECN sysctl to allow server-side only ECN"):

 1) Normal ECN-capable path:

    SYN ECE CWR ----->
                <----- SYN ACK ECE
            ACK ----->

 2) Path with broken middlebox, when client has fallback:

    SYN ECE CWR ----X crappy middlebox drops packet
                      (timeout, rtx)
            SYN ----->
                <----- SYN ACK
            ACK ----->

In case we would not have the fallback implemented, the middlebox drop
point would basically end up as:

    SYN ECE CWR ----X crappy middlebox drops packet
                      (timeout, rtx)
    SYN ECE CWR ----X crappy middlebox drops packet
                      (timeout, rtx)
    SYN ECE CWR ----X crappy middlebox drops packet
                      (timeout, rtx)

In any case, it's rather a smaller percentage of sites where there would
occur such additional setup latency: it was found in end of 2014 that ~56%
of IPv4 and 65% of IPv6 servers of Alexa 1 million list would negotiate
ECN (aka tcp_ecn=2 default), 0.42% of these webservers will fail to connect
when trying to negotiate with ECN (tcp_ecn=1) due to timeouts, which the
fallback would mitigate with a slight latency trade-off. Recent related
paper on this topic:

  Brian Trammell, Mirja Kühlewind, Damiano Boppart, Iain Learmonth,
  Gorry Fairhurst, and Richard Scheffenegger:
    "Enabling Internet-Wide Deployment of Explicit Congestion Notification."
    Proc. PAM 2015, New York.
  http://ecn.ethz.ch/ecn-pam15.pdf

Thus, when net.ipv4.tcp_ecn=1 is being set, the patch will perform RFC3168,
section 6.1.1.1. fallback on timeout. For users explicitly not wanting this
which can be in DC use case, we add a net.ipv4.tcp_ecn_fallback knob that
allows for disabling the fallback.

tp->ecn_flags are not being cleared in tcp_ecn_clear_syn() on output, but
rather we let tcp_ecn_rcv_synack() take that over on input path in case a
SYN ACK ECE was delayed. Thus a spurious SYN retransmission will not prevent
ECN being negotiated eventually in that case.

Reference: https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/92/slides/slides-92-iccrg-1.pdf
Reference: https://www.ietf.org/proceedings/89/slides/slides-89-tsvarea-1.pdf
Signed-off-by: Daniel Borkmann <daniel@iogearbox.net>
Signed-off-by: Florian Westphal <fw@strlen.de>
Signed-off-by: Mirja Kühlewind <mirja.kuehlewind@tik.ee.ethz.ch>
Signed-off-by: Brian Trammell <trammell@tik.ee.ethz.ch>
Cc: Eric Dumazet <edumazet@google.com>
Cc: Dave That <dave.taht@gmail.com>
Acked-by: Eric Dumazet <edumazet@google.com>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>

1 files changed, 13 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/net/ipv4/tcp_output.c b/net/ipv4/tcp_output.c
index 08c2cc40b26d..e29d43b5a0bb 100644
--- a/net/ipv4/tcp_output.c
+++ b/net/ipv4/tcp_output.c
@@ -350,6 +350,15 @@ static void tcp_ecn_send_syn(struct sock *sk, struct sk_buff *skb)
 	}
 }
 
+static void tcp_ecn_clear_syn(struct sock *sk, struct sk_buff *skb)
+{
+	if (sock_net(sk)->ipv4.sysctl_tcp_ecn_fallback)
+		/* tp->ecn_flags are cleared at a later point in time when
+		 * SYN ACK is ultimatively being received.
+		 */
+		TCP_SKB_CB(skb)->tcp_flags &= ~(TCPHDR_ECE | TCPHDR_CWR);
+}
+
 static void
 tcp_ecn_make_synack(const struct request_sock *req, struct tcphdr *th,
 		    struct sock *sk)
@@ -2615,6 +2624,10 @@ int __tcp_retransmit_skb(struct sock *sk, struct sk_buff *skb)
 		}
 	}
 
+	/* RFC3168, section 6.1.1.1. ECN fallback */
+	if ((TCP_SKB_CB(skb)->tcp_flags & TCPHDR_SYN_ECN) == TCPHDR_SYN_ECN)
+		tcp_ecn_clear_syn(sk, skb);
+
 	tcp_retrans_try_collapse(sk, skb, cur_mss);
 
 	/* Make a copy, if the first transmission SKB clone we made