tree 48ac36dadd2e162b27ead7bdd630d0efa1e0ea0d
parent e4f7ae930afafd4d9d67449657fefe51010c3349
author Daniel Borkmann <dborkman@redhat.com> 1402786754 +0200
committer David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net> 1402820252 -0700

net: sctp: fix permissions for rto_alpha and rto_beta knobs

Commit 3fd091e73b81 ("[SCTP]: Remove multiple levels of msecs
to jiffies conversions.") has silently changed permissions for
rto_alpha and rto_beta knobs from 0644 to 0444. The purpose of
this was to discourage users from tweaking rto_alpha and
rto_beta knobs in production environments since they are key
to correctly compute rtt/srtt.

RFC4960 under section 6.3.1. RTO Calculation says regarding
rto_alpha and rto_beta under rule C3 and C4:

  [...]
  C3)  When a new RTT measurement R' is made, set

       RTTVAR <- (1 - RTO.Beta) * RTTVAR + RTO.Beta * |SRTT - R'|

       and

       SRTT <- (1 - RTO.Alpha) * SRTT + RTO.Alpha * R'

       Note: The value of SRTT used in the update to RTTVAR
       is its value before updating SRTT itself using the
       second assignment. After the computation, update
       RTO <- SRTT + 4 * RTTVAR.

  C4)  When data is in flight and when allowed by rule C5
       below, a new RTT measurement MUST be made each round
       trip. Furthermore, new RTT measurements SHOULD be
       made no more than once per round trip for a given
       destination transport address. There are two reasons
       for this recommendation: First, it appears that
       measuring more frequently often does not in practice
       yield any significant benefit [ALLMAN99]; second,
       if measurements are made more often, then the values
       of RTO.Alpha and RTO.Beta in rule C3 above should be
       adjusted so that SRTT and RTTVAR still adjust to
       changes at roughly the same rate (in terms of how many
       round trips it takes them to reflect new values) as
       they would if making only one measurement per
       round-trip and using RTO.Alpha and RTO.Beta as given
       in rule C3. However, the exact nature of these
       adjustments remains a research issue.
  [...]

While it is discouraged to adjust rto_alpha and rto_beta
and not further specified how to adjust them, the RFC also
doesn't explicitly forbid it, but rather gives a RECOMMENDED
default value (rto_alpha=3, rto_beta=2). We have a couple
of users relying on the old permissions before they got
changed. That said, if someone really has the urge to adjust
them, we could allow it with a warning in the log.

Fixes: 3fd091e73b81 ("[SCTP]: Remove multiple levels of msecs to jiffies conversions.")
Signed-off-by: Daniel Borkmann <dborkman@redhat.com>
Cc: Vlad Yasevich <vyasevich@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>