• Gerrit Renker's avatar
    [TCP]: Fix ambiguity in the `before' relation. · 9a036b9c
    Gerrit Renker authored
    While looking at DCCP sequence numbers, I stumbled over a problem with
    the following definition of before in tcp.h:
    
    static inline int before(__u32 seq1, __u32 seq2)
    {
            return (__s32)(seq1-seq2) < 0;
    }
    
    Problem: This definition suffers from an an ambiguity, i.e. always
    
               before(a, (a + 2^31) % 2^32)) = 1
               before((a + 2^31) % 2^32), a) = 1
    
             In text: when the difference between a and b amounts to 2^31,
             a is always considered `before' b, the function can not decide.
             The reason is that implicitly 0 is `before' 1 ... 2^31-1 ... 2^31
    
    Solution: There is a simple fix, by defining before in such a way that
              0 is no longer `before' 2^31, i.e. 0 `before' 1 ... 2^31-1
              By not using the middle between 0 and 2^32, before can be made
              unambiguous.
              This is achieved by testing whether seq2-seq1 > 0 (using signed
              32-bit arithmetic).
    
    I attach a patch to codify this. Also the `after' relation is basically
    a redefinition of `before', it is now defined as a macro after before.
    Signed-off-by: default avatarGerrit Renker <gerrit@erg.abdn.ac.uk>
    Signed-off-by: default avatarDavid S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net>
    9a036b9c
tcp.h 35.8 KB