oxidecomputer / oxidecomputer/maghemite

ICMPv6 Router Solicitations are generated with invalid checksums

Open Beginner friendly
#802 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Bug mgd ndp rust
Dominant language
Rust
Stars
94
Forks
6
Avg merge
1d 8h
Merged PRs (30d)
12

Description

Bad codepath in ndp/src/util.rs:

// dst == None here
cksum(src, dst, ICMP6_RS_ULP_LEN, &mut out);

// but None means ff02::2 here
let dst = SocketAddrV6::new(
    dst.unwrap_or(ALL_ROUTERS_MCAST),
    0,
    0,
    ifindex,
);

cksum(None) internally uses ALL_NODES_MCAST (ff02::1), which is correct for Router Advertisements. But send_rs(None) sends Router Solicitations to ALL_ROUTERS_MCAST (ff02::2).

ICMPv6 checksums include the IPv6 pseudo-header destination, so multicast RS packets are checksummed for ff02::1 but sent to ff02::2. Receivers should drop them as invalid

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start in ndp/src/util.rs at the cksum call and send_rs(None) path. Trace how the destination is selected for the IPv6 pseudo-header and for transmission. The fix is done when Router Solicitations sent to ff02::2 use that same destination in their checksum and are no longer rejected as invalid.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
networking
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
2/5
Estimated time
1-3 hours
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Clearly specified
Newbie friendliness
78/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.