NAME¶
SIFTR
—
Statistical Information For TCP Research
SYNOPSIS¶
To load the driver as a module at run-time, run the following command as root:
Alternatively, to load the driver as a module at boot time, add the following
line into the
loader.conf(5) file:
DESCRIPTION¶
The
SIFTR
(
Statistical
Information
For
TCP
Research) kernel
module logs a range of statistics on active TCP connections to a log file. It
provides the ability to make highly granular measurements of TCP connection
state, aimed at system administrators, developers and researchers.
Compile-time Configuration¶
The default operation of
SIFTR
is to capture
IPv4 TCP/IP packets.
SIFTR
can be
configured to support IPv4 and IPv6 by uncommenting:
in ⟨sys/modules/siftr/Makefile⟩ and recompiling.
In the IPv4-only (default) mode, standard dotted decimal notation (e.g.
"136.186.229.95") is used to format IPv4 addresses for logging. In
IPv6 mode, standard dotted decimal notation is used to format IPv4 addresses,
and standard colon-separated hex notation (see RFC 4291) is used to format
IPv6 addresses for logging. Note that SIFTR uses uncompressed notation to
format IPv6 addresses. For example, the address
"fe80::20f:feff:fea2:531b" would be logged as
"fe80:0:0:0:20f:feff:fea2:531b".
Run-time Configuration¶
SIFTR
utilises the
sysctl(8) interface to export its configuration
variables to user-space. The following variables are available:
- net.inet.siftr.enabled
- controls whether the module performs its measurements or not. By default,
the value is set to 0, which means the module will not be taking any
measurements. Having the module loaded with
net.inet.siftr.enabled set to 0 will have
no impact on the performance of the network stack, as the packet filtering
hooks are only inserted when
net.inet.siftr.enabled is set to 1.
- net.inet.siftr.ppl
- controls how many inbound/outbound packets for a given TCP connection will
cause a log message to be generated for the connection. By default, the
value is set to 1, which means the module will log a message for every
packet of every TCP connection. The value can be set to any integer in the
range [1,2^32], and can be changed at any time, even while the module is
enabled.
- net.inet.siftr.logfile
- controls the path to the file that the module writes its log messages to.
By default, the file /var/log/siftr.log is used. The path can be changed
at any time, even while the module is enabled.
- net.inet.siftr.genhashes
- controls whether a hash is generated for each TCP packet seen by
SIFTR
. By default, the value is set to
0, which means no hashes are generated. The hashes are useful to correlate
which TCP packet triggered the generation of a particular log message, but
calculating them adds additional computational overhead into the fast
path.
A typical
SIFTR
log file will contain 3
different types of log message. All messages are written in plain ASCII text.
Note: The “\” present in the example log messages in this section
indicates a line continuation and is not part of the actual log message.
The first type of log message is written to the file when the module is enabled
and starts collecting data from the running kernel. The text below shows an
example module enable log. The fields are tab delimited key-value pairs which
describe some basic information about the system.
enable_time_secs=1238556193 enable_time_usecs=462104 \
siftrver=1.2.2 hz=1000 tcp_rtt_scale=32 \
sysname=FreeBSD sysver=604000 ipmode=4
Field descriptions are as follows:
- enable_time_secs
- time at which the module was enabled, in seconds since the UNIX
epoch.
- enable_time_usecs
- time at which the module was enabled, in microseconds since
enable_time_secs.
- siftrver
- version of
SIFTR
.
- hz
- tick rate of the kernel in ticks per second.
- tcp_rtt_scale
- smoothed RTT estimate scaling factor.
- sysname
- operating system name.
- sysver
- operating system version.
- ipmode
- IP mode as defined at compile time. An ipmode of "4" means IPv6
is not supported and IP addresses are logged in regular dotted quad
format. An ipmode of "6" means IPv6 is supported, and IP
addresses are logged in dotted quad or hex format, as described in the
“Compile-time Configuration” subsection.
The second type of log message is written to the file when a data log message is
generated. The text below shows an example data log triggered by an IPv4
TCP/IP packet. The data is CSV formatted.
o,0xbec491a5,1238556193.463551,172.16.7.28,22,172.16.2.5,55931, \
1073725440,172312,6144,66560,66608,8,1,4,1448,936,1,996,255, \
33304,208,66608,0,208,0
Field descriptions are as follows:
- 1
- Direction of packet that triggered the log message. Either
“i” for in, or “o” for out.
- 2
- Hash of the packet that triggered the log message.
- 3
- Time at which the packet that triggered the log message was processed by
the pfil(9) hook function, in seconds and
microseconds since the UNIX epoch.
- 4
- The IPv4 or IPv6 address of the local host, in dotted quad (IPv4 packet)
or colon-separated hex (IPv6 packet) notation.
- 5
- The TCP port that the local host is communicating via.
- 6
- The IPv4 or IPv6 address of the foreign host, in dotted quad (IPv4 packet)
or colon-separated hex (IPv6 packet) notation.
- 7
- The TCP port that the foreign host is communicating via.
- 8
- The slow start threshold for the flow, in bytes.
- 9
- The current congestion window for the flow, in bytes.
- 10
- The current bandwidth-controlled window for the flow, in bytes.
- 11
- The current sending window for the flow, in bytes. The post scaled value
is reported, except during the initial handshake (first few packets),
during which time the unscaled value is reported.
- 12
- The current receive window for the flow, in bytes. The post scaled value
is always reported.
- 13
- The current window scaling factor for the sending window.
- 14
- The current window scaling factor for the receiving window.
- 15
- The current state of the TCP finite state machine, as defined in
⟨netinet/tcp_fsm.h⟩.
- 16
- The maximum segment size for the flow, in bytes.
- 17
- The current smoothed RTT estimate for the flow, in units of TCP_RTT_SCALE
* HZ, where TCP_RTT_SCALE is a define found in tcp_var.h, and HZ is the
kernel's tick timer. Divide by TCP_RTT_SCALE * HZ to get the RTT in secs.
TCP_RTT_SCALE and HZ are reported in the enable log message.
- 18
- SACK enabled indicator. 1 if SACK enabled, 0 otherwise.
- 19
- The current state of the TCP flags for the flow. See
⟨netinet/tcp_var.h⟩ for
information about the various flags.
- 20
- The current retransmission timeout length for the flow, in units of HZ,
where HZ is the kernel's tick timer. Divide by HZ to get the timeout
length in seconds. HZ is reported in the enable log message.
- 21
- The current size of the socket send buffer in bytes.
- 22
- The current number of bytes in the socket send buffer.
- 23
- The current size of the socket receive buffer in bytes.
- 24
- The current number of bytes in the socket receive buffer.
- 25
- The current number of unacknowledged bytes in-flight. Bytes acknowledged
via SACK are not excluded from this count.
- 26
- The current number of segments in the reassembly queue.
The third type of log message is written to the file when the module is disabled
and ceases collecting data from the running kernel. The text below shows an
example module disable log. The fields are tab delimited key-value pairs which
provide statistics about operations since the module was most recently
enabled.
disable_time_secs=1238556197 disable_time_usecs=933607 \
num_inbound_tcp_pkts=356 num_outbound_tcp_pkts=627 \
total_tcp_pkts=983 num_inbound_skipped_pkts_malloc=0 \
num_outbound_skipped_pkts_malloc=0 num_inbound_skipped_pkts_mtx=0 \
num_outbound_skipped_pkts_mtx=0 num_inbound_skipped_pkts_tcb=0 \
num_outbound_skipped_pkts_tcb=0 num_inbound_skipped_pkts_icb=0 \
num_outbound_skipped_pkts_icb=0 total_skipped_tcp_pkts=0 \
flow_list=172.16.7.28;22-172.16.2.5;55931,
Field descriptions are as follows:
- disable_time_secs
- Time at which the module was disabled, in seconds since the UNIX
epoch.
- disable_time_usecs
- Time at which the module was disabled, in microseconds since
disable_time_secs.
- num_inbound_tcp_pkts
- Number of TCP packets that traversed up the network stack. This only
includes inbound TCP packets during the periods when
SIFTR
was enabled.
- num_outbound_tcp_pkts
- Number of TCP packets that traversed down the network stack. This only
includes outbound TCP packets during the periods when
SIFTR
was enabled.
- total_tcp_pkts
- The summation of num_inbound_tcp_pkts and num_outbound_tcp_pkts.
- num_inbound_skipped_pkts_malloc
- Number of inbound packets that were not processed because of failed
malloc() calls.
- num_outbound_skipped_pkts_malloc
- Number of outbound packets that were not processed because of failed
malloc() calls.
- num_inbound_skipped_pkts_mtx
- Number of inbound packets that were not processed because of failure to
add the packet to the packet processing queue.
- num_outbound_skipped_pkts_mtx
- Number of outbound packets that were not processed because of failure to
add the packet to the packet processing queue.
- num_inbound_skipped_pkts_tcb
- Number of inbound packets that were not processed because of failure to
find the TCP control block associated with the packet.
- num_outbound_skipped_pkts_tcb
- Number of outbound packets that were not processed because of failure to
find the TCP control block associated with the packet.
- num_inbound_skipped_pkts_icb
- Number of inbound packets that were not processed because of failure to
find the IP control block associated with the packet.
- num_outbound_skipped_pkts_icb
- Number of outbound packets that were not processed because of failure to
find the IP control block associated with the packet.
- total_skipped_tcp_pkts
- The summation of all skipped packet counters.
- flow_list
- A CSV list of TCP flows that triggered data log messages to be generated
since the module was loaded. Each flow entry in the CSV list is formatted
as “local_ip;local_port-foreign_ip;foreign_port”. If there
are no entries in the list (i.e., no data log messages were generated),
the value will be blank. If there is at least one entry in the list, a
trailing comma will always be present.
The total number of data log messages found in the log file for a module
enable/disable cycle should equate to total_tcp_pkts - total_skipped_tcp_pkts.
IMPLEMENTATION NOTES¶
SIFTR
hooks into the network stack using the
pfil(9) interface. In its current incarnation, it
hooks into the AF_INET/AF_INET6 (IPv4/IPv6)
pfil(9) filtering points, which means it sees
packets at the IP layer of the network stack. This means that TCP packets
inbound to the stack are intercepted before they have been processed by the
TCP layer. Packets outbound from the stack are intercepted after they have
been processed by the TCP layer.
The diagram below illustrates how
SIFTR
inserts itself into the stack.
----------------------------------
Upper Layers
----------------------------------
^ |
| |
| |
| v
TCP in TCP out
----------------------------------
^ |
|________ _________|
| |
| v
---------
| SIFTR |
---------
^ |
________| |__________
| |
| v
IPv{4/6} in IPv{4/6} out
----------------------------------
^ |
| |
| v
Layer 2 in Layer 2 out
----------------------------------
Physical Layer
----------------------------------
SIFTR
uses the
alq(9) interface to manage writing data to disk.
At first glance, you might mistakenly think that
SIFTR
extracts information from individual
TCP packets. This is not the case.
SIFTR
uses TCP packet events (inbound and outbound) for each TCP flow originating
from the system to trigger a dump of the state of the TCP control block for
that flow. With the PPL set to 1, we are in effect sampling each TCP flow's
control block state as frequently as flow packets enter/leave the system. For
example, setting PPL to 2 halves the sampling rate i.e., every second flow
packet (inbound OR outbound) causes a dump of the control block state.
The distinction between interrogating individual packets versus interrogating
the control block is important, because
SIFTR
does not remove the need for packet
capturing tools like
tcpdump(1).
SIFTR
allows you to correlate and observe
the cause-and-affect relationship between what you see on the wire (captured
using a tool like
tcpdump(1)) and changes in the
TCP control block corresponding to the flow of interest. It is therefore
useful to use
SIFTR
and a tool like
tcpdump(1) to gather the necessary data to piece
together the complete picture. Use of either tool on its own will not be able
to provide all of the necessary data.
As a result of needing to interrogate the TCP control block, certain packets
during the lifecycle of a connection are unable to trigger a
SIFTR
log message. The initial handshake
takes place without the existence of a control block and the final ACK is
exchanged when the connection is in the TIMEWAIT state.
SIFTR
was designed to minimise the delay
introduced to packets traversing the network stack. This design called for a
highly optimised and minimal hook function that extracted the minimal details
necessary whilst holding the packet up, and passing these details to another
thread for actual processing and logging.
This multithreaded design does introduce some contention issues when accessing
the data structure shared between the threads of operation. When the hook
function tries to place details in the structure, it must first acquire an
exclusive lock. Likewise, when the processing thread tries to read details
from the structure, it must also acquire an exclusive lock to do so. If one
thread holds the lock, the other must wait before it can obtain it. This does
introduce some additional bounded delay into the kernel's packet processing
code path.
In some cases (e.g., low memory, connection termination), TCP packets that enter
the
SIFTR
pfil(9) hook function will not trigger a log
message to be generated.
SIFTR
refers to
this outcome as a “skipped packet”. Note that
SIFTR
always ensures that packets are
allowed to continue through the stack, even if they could not successfully
trigger a data log message.
SIFTR
will
therefore not introduce any packet loss for TCP/IP packets traversing the
network stack.
Important Behaviours¶
The behaviour of a log file path change whilst the module is enabled is as
follows:
- Attempt to open the new file path for writing. If this fails, the path
change will fail and the existing path will continue to be used.
- Assuming the new path is valid and opened successfully:
- Flush all pending log messages to the old file path.
- Close the old file path.
- Switch the active log file pointer to point at the new file path.
- Commence logging to the new file.
During the time between the flush of pending log messages to the old file and
commencing logging to the new file, new log messages will still be generated
and buffered. As soon as the new file path is ready for writing, the
accumulated log messages will be written out to the file.
EXAMPLES¶
To enable the module's operations, run the following command as root: sysctl
net.inet.siftr.enabled=1
To change the granularity of log messages such that 1 log message is generated
for every 10 TCP packets per connection, run the following command as root:
sysctl net.inet.siftr.ppl=10
To change the log file location to /tmp/siftr.log, run the following command as
root: sysctl net.inet.siftr.logfile=/tmp/siftr.log
SEE ALSO¶
tcpdump(1),
tcp(4),
sysctl(8),
alq(9),
pfil(9)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS¶
Development of this software was made possible in part by grants from the Cisco
University Research Program Fund at Community Foundation Silicon Valley, and
the FreeBSD Foundation.
HISTORY¶
SIFTR
first appeared in
FreeBSD 7.4 and
FreeBSD 8.2.
SIFTR
was first released in 2007 by Lawrence
Stewart and James Healy whilst working on the NewTCP research project at
Swinburne University of Technology's Centre for Advanced Internet
Architectures, Melbourne, Australia, which was made possible in part by a
grant from the Cisco University Research Program Fund at Community Foundation
Silicon Valley. More details are available at:
http://caia.swin.edu.au/urp/newtcp/
Work on
SIFTR
v1.2.x was sponsored by the
FreeBSD Foundation as part of the “Enhancing the FreeBSD TCP
Implementation” project 2008-2009. More details are available at:
http://www.freebsdfoundation.org/
http://caia.swin.edu.au/freebsd/etcp09/
AUTHORS¶
SIFTR
was written by
Lawrence Stewart
⟨lstewart@FreeBSD.org⟩ and
James
Healy ⟨jimmy@deefa.com⟩.
This manual page was written by
Lawrence
Stewart ⟨lstewart@FreeBSD.org⟩.
BUGS¶
Current known limitations and any relevant workarounds are outlined below:
- The internal queue used to pass information between the threads of
operation is currently unbounded. This allows
SIFTR
to cope with bursty network
traffic, but sustained high packet-per-second traffic can cause exhaustion
of kernel memory if the processing thread cannot keep up with the packet
rate.
- If using
SIFTR
on a machine that is
also running other modules utilising the
pfil(9) framework e.g.
dummynet(4),
ipfw(8), pf(4),
the order in which you load the modules is important. You should kldload
the other modules first, as this will ensure TCP packets undergo any
necessary manipulations before SIFTR
“sees” and processes them.
- There is a known, harmless lock order reversal warning between the
pfil(9) mutex and tcbinfo TCP lock reported
by witness(4) when
SIFTR
is enabled in a kernel compiled
with witness(4) support.
- There is no way to filter which TCP flows you wish to capture data for.
Post processing is required to separate out data belonging to particular
flows of interest.
- The module does not detect deletion of the log file path. New log messages
will simply be lost if the log file being used by
SIFTR
is deleted whilst the module is
set to use the file. Switching to a new log file using the
net.inet.siftr.logfile variable will create
the new file and allow log messages to begin being written to disk again.
The new log file path must differ from the path to the deleted file.
- The hash table used within the code is sized to hold 65536 flows. This is
not a hard limit, because chaining is used to handle collisions within the
hash table structure. However, we suspect (based on analogies with other
hash table performance data) that the hash table look up performance (and
therefore the module's packet processing performance) will degrade in an
exponential manner as the number of unique flows handled in a module
enable/disable cycle approaches and surpasses 65536.
- There is no garbage collection performed on the flow hash table. The only
way currently to flush it is to disable
SIFTR
.
- The PPL variable applies to packets that make it into the processing
thread, not total packets received in the hook function. Packets are
skipped before the PPL variable is applied, which means there may be a
slight discrepancy in the triggering of log messages. For example, if PPL
was set to 10, and the 8th packet since the last log message is skipped,
the 11th packet will actually trigger the log message to be generated.
This is discussed in greater depth in CAIA technical report 070824A.
- At the time of writing, there was no simple way to hook into the TCP layer
to intercept packets.
SIFTR
's use of IP
layer hook points means all IP traffic will be processed by the
SIFTR
pfil(9) hook function, which introduces
minor, but nonetheless unnecessary packet delay and processing overhead on
the system for non-TCP packets as well. Hooking in at the IP layer is also
not ideal from the data gathering point of view. Packets traversing up the
stack will be intercepted and cause a log message generation BEFORE they
have been processed by the TCP layer, which means we cannot observe the
cause-and-affect relationship between inbound events and the corresponding
TCP control block as precisely as could be. Ideally,
SIFTR
should intercept packets after
they have been processed by the TCP layer i.e. intercept packets coming up
the stack after they have been processed by tcp_input(), and intercept
packets coming down the stack after they have been processed by
tcp_output(). The current code still gives satisfactory granularity
though, as inbound events tend to trigger outbound events, allowing the
cause-and-effect to be observed indirectly by capturing the state on
outbound events as well.
- The “inflight bytes” value logged by
SIFTR
does not take into account bytes
that have been SACK'ed by the receiving host.
- Packet hash generation does not currently work for IPv6 based TCP
packets.
- Compressed notation is not used for IPv6 address representation. This
consumes more bytes than is necessary in log output.