Subject: Re: [RFC][PATCH] Fixing SA/SP dumps on netlink/af_key

From: Timo Teräs <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 11:20:42 +0200

David Miller wrote:
> From: Timo_Teräs <[email-masked]>
> Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 10:11:17 +0200
> 
>> I thought my patch would qualify as "life support" bug fix.
>> Currently racoon fails to work if there are too many SPDs or SAs
>> because the kernel cannot handle the dump request properly. And this
>> is what my patch fixes for pfkey. It adds no new features or
>> functionality; just makes the dumping work with large databases.
> 
> Racoon should use netlink for reasons far and beyond the
> problem you are trying to address.

Yes. But this is fairly major thing to do. One needs to create
API abstraction layer (still need to use pfkey in *BSD). Test it.
A lot of work that is not going to happen very soon.

Where as the pfkey bug fix is non-intrusive and helps all
legacy applications still using af_key by _fixing a bug in
kernel_.

> The dumping behavior of AF_KEY is just horrific, as one of
> several examples.

If af_key is all that bad and does not qualify to get maintanace
bug fixes, why not remove it complitely?

That would make userland adapt faster.

>> Then there's also the xfrm dumping changes which change the
>> algorithm from O(n^2) to O(n) with some memory overhead, but
>> that is a different story. Any comments on that?
> 
> I have no general objections to those changes although I am
> backlogged and thus have not studied them in detail.  Jamal
> is having what appears to be a healthy dialogue with you about
> the details so I'm not concerned much :)

Ok. I hope someone can also give feedback on the naming
conventions. And about the api changes to xfrm policy/state
walking.

- Timo