net: introduce a knob to control whether to inherit devconf config

There have been many people complaining about the inconsistent
behaviors of IPv4 and IPv6 devconf when creating new network
namespaces.  Currently, for IPv4, we inherit all current settings
from init_net, but for IPv6 we reset all setting to default.

This patch introduces a new /proc file
/proc/sys/net/core/devconf_inherit_init_net to control the
behavior of whether to inhert sysctl current settings from init_net.
This file itself is only available in init_net.

As demonstrated below:

Initial setup in init_net:
 # cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/all/rp_filter
 2
 # cat /proc/sys/net/ipv6/conf/all/accept_dad
 1

Default value 0 (current behavior):
 # ip netns del test
 # ip netns add test
 # ip netns exec test cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/all/rp_filter
 2
 # ip netns exec test cat /proc/sys/net/ipv6/conf/all/accept_dad
 0

Set to 1 (inherit from init_net):
 # echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/core/devconf_inherit_init_net
 # ip netns del test
 # ip netns add test
 # ip netns exec test cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/all/rp_filter
 2
 # ip netns exec test cat /proc/sys/net/ipv6/conf/all/accept_dad
 1

Set to 2 (reset to default):
 # echo 2 > /proc/sys/net/core/devconf_inherit_init_net
 # ip netns del test
 # ip netns add test
 # ip netns exec test cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/conf/all/rp_filter
 0
 # ip netns exec test cat /proc/sys/net/ipv6/conf/all/accept_dad
 0

Set to a value out of range (invalid):
 # echo 3 > /proc/sys/net/core/devconf_inherit_init_net
 -bash: echo: write error: Invalid argument
 # echo -1 > /proc/sys/net/core/devconf_inherit_init_net
 -bash: echo: write error: Invalid argument

Reported-by: Zhu Yanjun <Yanjun.Zhu@windriver.com>
Reported-by: Tonghao Zhang <xiangxia.m.yue@gmail.com>
Cc: Nicolas Dichtel <nicolas.dichtel@6wind.com>
Signed-off-by: Cong Wang <xiyou.wangcong@gmail.com>
Acked-by: Nicolas Dichtel <nicolas.dichtel@6wind.com>
Acked-by: Tonghao Zhang <xiangxia.m.yue@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>

1 files changed, 14 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/sysctl/net.txt b/Documentation/sysctl/net.txt
index 2793d4eac55f..bc0680706870 100644
--- a/Documentation/sysctl/net.txt
+++ b/Documentation/sysctl/net.txt
@@ -291,6 +291,20 @@ user space is responsible for creating them if needed.
 
 Default : 0  (for compatibility reasons)
 
+devconf_inherit_init_net
+----------------------------
+
+Controls if a new network namespace should inherit all current
+settings under /proc/sys/net/{ipv4,ipv6}/conf/{all,default}/. By
+default, we keep the current behavior: for IPv4 we inherit all current
+settings from init_net and for IPv6 we reset all settings to default.
+
+If set to 1, both IPv4 and IPv6 settings are forced to inherit from
+current ones in init_net. If set to 2, both IPv4 and IPv6 settings are
+forced to reset to their default values.
+
+Default : 0  (for compatibility reasons)
+
 2. /proc/sys/net/unix - Parameters for Unix domain sockets
 -------------------------------------------------------