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authorChuck Lever <chuck.lever@oracle.com>2008-12-23 15:21:37 -0500
committerTrond Myklebust <Trond.Myklebust@netapp.com>2008-12-23 15:21:37 -0500
commitd740351bf0960e89ce1aef45cfe00167cb0f9e5b (patch)
tree9b0838d5105942d0b061c26cad68aa0380a3ce7c /include/linux/nfs_mount.h
parent542fcc334adfea36d407cbf698d549fcb2bf6b91 (diff)
NFS: add "[no]resvport" mount option
The standard default security setting for NFS is AUTH_SYS. An NFS client connects to NFS servers via a privileged source port and a fixed standard destination port (2049). The client sends raw uid and gid numbers to identify users making NFS requests, and the server assumes an appropriate authority on the client has vetted these values because the source port is privileged. On Linux, by default in-kernel RPC services use a privileged port in the range between 650 and 1023 to avoid using source ports of well- known IP services. Using such a small range limits the number of NFS mount points and the number of unique NFS servers to which a client can connect concurrently. An NFS client can use unprivileged source ports to expand the range of source port numbers, allowing more concurrent server connections and more NFS mount points. Servers must explicitly allow NFS connections from unprivileged ports for this to work. In the past, bumping the value of the sunrpc.max_resvport sysctl on the client would permit the NFS client to use unprivileged ports. Bumping this setting also changes the maximum port number used by other in-kernel RPC services, some of which still required a port number less than 1023. This is exacerbated by the way source port numbers are chosen by the Linux RPC client, which starts at the top of the range and works downwards. It means that bumping the maximum means all RPC services requesting a source port will likely get an unprivileged port instead of a privileged one. Changing this setting effects all NFS mount points on a client. A sysadmin could not selectively choose which mount points would use non-privileged ports and which could not. Lastly, this mechanism of expanding the limit on the number of NFS mount points was entirely undocumented. To address the need for the NFS client to use a large range of source ports without interfering with the activity of other in-kernel RPC services, we introduce a new NFS mount option. This option explicitly tells only the NFS client to use a non-privileged source port when communicating with the NFS server for one specific mount point. This new mount option is called "resvport," like the similar NFS mount option on FreeBSD and Mac OS X. A sister patch for nfs-utils will be submitted that documents this new option in nfs(5). The default setting for this new mount option requires the NFS client to use a privileged port, as before. Explicitly specifying the "noresvport" mount option allows the NFS client to use an unprivileged source port for this mount point when connecting to the NFS server port. This mount option is supported only for text-based NFS mounts. [ Sidebar: it is widely known that security mechanisms based on the use of privileged source ports are ineffective. However, the NFS client can combine the use of unprivileged ports with the use of secure authentication mechanisms, such as Kerberos. This allows a large number of connections and mount points while ensuring a useful level of security. Eventually we may change the default setting for this option depending on the security flavor used for the mount. For example, if the mount is using only AUTH_SYS, then the default setting will be "resvport;" if the mount is using a strong security flavor such as krb5, the default setting will be "noresvport." ] Signed-off-by: Chuck Lever <chuck.lever@oracle.com> [Trond.Myklebust@netapp.com: Fixed a bug whereby nfs4_init_client() was being called with incorrect arguments.] Signed-off-by: Trond Myklebust <Trond.Myklebust@netapp.com>
Diffstat (limited to 'include/linux/nfs_mount.h')
-rw-r--r--include/linux/nfs_mount.h3
1 files changed, 2 insertions, 1 deletions
diff --git a/include/linux/nfs_mount.h b/include/linux/nfs_mount.h
index 6549a06ac16e..4499016e6d0d 100644
--- a/include/linux/nfs_mount.h
+++ b/include/linux/nfs_mount.h
@@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ struct nfs_mount_data {
char context[NFS_MAX_CONTEXT_LEN + 1]; /* 6 */
};
-/* bits in the flags field */
+/* bits in the flags field visible to user space */
#define NFS_MOUNT_SOFT 0x0001 /* 1 */
#define NFS_MOUNT_INTR 0x0002 /* 1 */ /* now unused, but ABI */
@@ -68,5 +68,6 @@ struct nfs_mount_data {
/* The following are for internal use only */
#define NFS_MOUNT_LOOKUP_CACHE_NONEG 0x10000
#define NFS_MOUNT_LOOKUP_CACHE_NONE 0x20000
+#define NFS_MOUNT_NORESVPORT 0x40000
#endif