netfilter: add user-space connection tracking helper infrastructure

There are good reasons to supports helpers in user-space instead:

* Rapid connection tracking helper development, as developing code
  in user-space is usually faster.

* Reliability: A buggy helper does not crash the kernel. Moreover,
  we can monitor the helper process and restart it in case of problems.

* Security: Avoid complex string matching and mangling in kernel-space
  running in privileged mode. Going further, we can even think about
  running user-space helpers as a non-root process.

* Extensibility: It allows the development of very specific helpers (most
  likely non-standard proprietary protocols) that are very likely not to be
  accepted for mainline inclusion in the form of kernel-space connection
  tracking helpers.

This patch adds the infrastructure to allow the implementation of
user-space conntrack helpers by means of the new nfnetlink subsystem
`nfnetlink_cthelper' and the existing queueing infrastructure
(nfnetlink_queue).

I had to add the new hook NF_IP6_PRI_CONNTRACK_HELPER to register
ipv[4|6]_helper which results from splitting ipv[4|6]_confirm into
two pieces. This change is required not to break NAT sequence
adjustment and conntrack confirmation for traffic that is enqueued
to our user-space conntrack helpers.

Basic operation, in a few steps:

1) Register user-space helper by means of `nfct':

 nfct helper add ftp inet tcp

 [ It must be a valid existing helper supported by conntrack-tools ]

2) Add rules to enable the FTP user-space helper which is
   used to track traffic going to TCP port 21.

For locally generated packets:

 iptables -I OUTPUT -t raw -p tcp --dport 21 -j CT --helper ftp

For non-locally generated packets:

 iptables -I PREROUTING -t raw -p tcp --dport 21 -j CT --helper ftp

3) Run the test conntrackd in helper mode (see example files under
   doc/helper/conntrackd.conf

 conntrackd

4) Generate FTP traffic going, if everything is OK, then conntrackd
   should create expectations (you can check that with `conntrack':

 conntrack -E expect

    [NEW] 301 proto=6 src=192.168.1.136 dst=130.89.148.12 sport=0 dport=54037 mask-src=255.255.255.255 mask-dst=255.255.255.255 sport=0 dport=65535 master-src=192.168.1.136 master-dst=130.89.148.12 sport=57127 dport=21 class=0 helper=ftp
[DESTROY] 301 proto=6 src=192.168.1.136 dst=130.89.148.12 sport=0 dport=54037 mask-src=255.255.255.255 mask-dst=255.255.255.255 sport=0 dport=65535 master-src=192.168.1.136 master-dst=130.89.148.12 sport=57127 dport=21 class=0 helper=ftp

This confirms that our test helper is receiving packets including the
conntrack information, and adding expectations in kernel-space.

The user-space helper can also store its private tracking information
in the conntrack structure in the kernel via the CTA_HELP_INFO. The
kernel will consider this a binary blob whose layout is unknown. This
information will be included in the information that is transfered
to user-space via glue code that integrates nfnetlink_queue and
ctnetlink.

Signed-off-by: Pablo Neira Ayuso <pablo@netfilter.org>

1 files changed, 17 insertions, 4 deletions

diff --git a/net/netfilter/nf_conntrack_helper.c b/net/netfilter/nf_conntrack_helper.c
index 9c18ecb0ab81..2918ec2e4509 100644
--- a/net/netfilter/nf_conntrack_helper.c
+++ b/net/netfilter/nf_conntrack_helper.c
@@ -30,8 +30,10 @@
 #include <net/netfilter/nf_conntrack_extend.h>
 
 static DEFINE_MUTEX(nf_ct_helper_mutex);
-static struct hlist_head *nf_ct_helper_hash __read_mostly;
-static unsigned int nf_ct_helper_hsize __read_mostly;
+struct hlist_head *nf_ct_helper_hash __read_mostly;
+EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(nf_ct_helper_hash);
+unsigned int nf_ct_helper_hsize __read_mostly;
+EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(nf_ct_helper_hsize);
 static unsigned int nf_ct_helper_count __read_mostly;
 
 static bool nf_ct_auto_assign_helper __read_mostly = true;
@@ -322,6 +324,9 @@ EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(nf_ct_helper_expectfn_find_by_symbol);
 
 int nf_conntrack_helper_register(struct nf_conntrack_helper *me)
 {
+	int ret = 0;
+	struct nf_conntrack_helper *cur;
+	struct hlist_node *n;
 	unsigned int h = helper_hash(&me->tuple);
 
 	BUG_ON(me->expect_policy == NULL);
@@ -329,11 +334,19 @@ int nf_conntrack_helper_register(struct nf_conntrack_helper *me)
 	BUG_ON(strlen(me->name) > NF_CT_HELPER_NAME_LEN - 1);
 
 	mutex_lock(&nf_ct_helper_mutex);
+	hlist_for_each_entry(cur, n, &nf_ct_helper_hash[h], hnode) {
+		if (strncmp(cur->name, me->name, NF_CT_HELPER_NAME_LEN) == 0 &&
+		    cur->tuple.src.l3num == me->tuple.src.l3num &&
+		    cur->tuple.dst.protonum == me->tuple.dst.protonum) {
+			ret = -EEXIST;
+			goto out;
+		}
+	}
 	hlist_add_head_rcu(&me->hnode, &nf_ct_helper_hash[h]);
 	nf_ct_helper_count++;
+out:
 	mutex_unlock(&nf_ct_helper_mutex);
-
-	return 0;
+	return ret;
 }
 EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(nf_conntrack_helper_register);