Re: [PATCH V3 net-next 1/4] net: bridge: add fdb flag to extent locked port feature

From: Ido Schimmel
Date: Thu May 26 2022 - 10:13:42 EST


On Tue, May 24, 2022 at 05:21:41PM +0200, Hans Schultz wrote:
> Add an intermediate state for clients behind a locked port to allow for
> possible opening of the port for said clients. This feature corresponds
> to the Mac-Auth and MAC Authentication Bypass (MAB) named features. The
> latter defined by Cisco.
> Locked FDB entries will be limited in number, so as to prevent DOS
> attacks by spamming the port with random entries. The limit will be
> a per port limit as it is a port based feature and that the port flushes
> all FDB entries on link down.

Why locked FDB entries need a special treatment compared to regular
entries? A port that has learning enabled can be spammed with random
source MACs just as well.

The authorization daemon that is monitoring FDB notifications can have a
policy to shut down a port if the rate / number of locked entries is
above a given threshold.

I don't think this kind of policy belongs in the kernel. If it resides
in user space, then the threshold can be adjusted. Currently it's hard
coded to 64 and I don't see how user space can change or monitor it.