Re: [bpf-next 1/2] tcp: replace SOCK_DEBUG() with tcp_stats()

From: Eric Dumazet
Date: Tue Feb 12 2019 - 21:15:54 EST


On Tue, Feb 12, 2019 at 6:07 PM Yafang Shao <laoar.shao@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>

> Let me explain the background for you.
> I want to track some TCP abnormal behavior in TCP/IP stack. But I
> find there's no good way to do it.
> The current MIBs are per net, other than per socket, that makes it not
> very powerful.
> And the ancient SOCK_DEBUG is not good as well.
> So we think why not cleanup this ancient SOCK_DEBUG() and introduce a
> more powerful method.


I am all for it, but this more powerful method does nothing at all in
the current patches.

I can not accept patches just because they seem to be harmless,
knowing that the next patches
will be pushed later changing more stuff, just because the new
infrastructure is there "and can be used"

Just remove all SOCK_DEBUG() calls, there are leftovers of very ancient times.

Do not add more debugging stuff unless you can demonstrate
they actually allowed you to find a real bug and that you sent a
public fix for it.

Just adding "cool stuff" in TCP stack does not please me, it is only
more complexity for unproven gain.

Otherwise, I am tempted to think that these BPF hooks are there only
so that a company can more
easily build a private variant of TCP, yet letting the community
maintaining the hard part of TCP stack.

Thank you.