Subject: IPsec: Why do pfkey_getspi and xfrm_alloc_userspi call xfrm_find_acq_byseq?

From: Christophe Gouault <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 10:46:26 +0200

Dear netdev developers,

I would like to understand why the pfkey_getspi and xfrm_alloc_userspi
functions call xfrm_find_acq_byseq() and try to find an reuse an SA in
state XFRM_STATE_ACQ with the same sequence number and destination
address as the GETSPI request.

As far as I understand, SAs in state XFRM_STATE_ACQ can only be created
as a result of a user call to GETSPI or a kernel ACQUIRE message.
- GETSPI is invoked by an application in order to create a temporary SA
with a unique SPI, typically during an IKE negotiation, to create the
inbound SA of the pair. No later GETSPI will be done on this SA.
- An acquire message is triggered by the kernel and creates a temporary
outbound SA whose SPI will be chosen by the remote IKE peer.
No later GETSPI will be done on this SA.

In which case can GETSPI find and reuse an SA that matches the message
sequence number and destination address?
A second lookup is done just after, with xfrm_find_acq (this function
uses a hash table). Wouldn't this lookup find this SA too?

The call to xfrm_find_acq_byseq is quite costly (the whole SAD is looked
up every time GETSPI is called), so I'd like to understand what its
purpose is.

Thanks in advance,

Christophe