NetworkManager

[ipv6] Network manager incorrectly lowers MTU when IPv6 is enabled

Bug #1499827 reported by Bryan Quigley on 2015-09-25

This bug affects 11 people

	Status	Importance	Assigned to
NetworkManager	Fix Released	Medium	gnome-bugs #752508
network-manager (Ubuntu)	Fix Released	High	Unassigned
Wily	Fix Released	High	Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre

Bug Description

[Impact]
Users with IPv6-supporting networks will see the messages below in the bug description appear repeatedly as NM mistakes a 0 value for MTU in internal NM code with 0-size packets instead of meaning "use default MTU".

[Test case]
- Run network-manager on a network supporting IPv6.
- Check /var/log/syslog for <warn> messages from NetworkManager.

[Regression Potential]
This changes behavior for handling the MTU value for IPv6, which should be no higher than the device MTU. Since 0 is an invalid value for MTU anyway, this should not otherwise affect MTU handling for devices.
Possible regressions from the change might include invalid (too high) set MTU for a device due to the failure to recognize cases where the MTU needs to be adjusted, leading to packet loss on IPv6.

Network manager is sending out a lot of warnings about changing the MTU:
Sep 25 14:13:03 desktop NetworkManager[703]: <warn> (wlan0): Lowering IPv6 MTU (1480) to match device MTU (1280)
Sep 25 14:13:21 desktop NetworkManager[703]: <warn> (wlan0): Lowering IPv6 MTU (1480) to match device MTU (0)
Sep 25 14:13:21 desktop NetworkManager[703]: <warn> (wlan0): IPv6 MTU (0) smaller than 1280, adjusting
Sep 25 14:13:21 desktop NetworkManager[703]: <warn> (wlan0): Raising device MTU (0) to match IPv6 MTU (1280)
Sep 25 14:13:29 desktop NetworkManager[703]: <warn> (wlan0): Lowering IPv6 MTU (1480) to match device MTU (1280)

Lowering IPv6 MTU (1480) to match device MTU (1280) repeats about 16 times between the other messages (about 2 mins round).

This doesn't appear to be Ubuntu specific - https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1552751

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 15.10
Package: network-manager 1.0.4-0ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.2.0-11.13-generic 4.2.1
Uname: Linux 4.2.0-11-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.19-0ubuntu1
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Fri Sep 25 14:09:20 2015
IfupdownConfig:
# interfaces(5) file used by ifup(8) and ifdown(8)
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
InstallationDate: Installed on 2015-01-08 (259 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 15.04 "Vivid Vervet" - Alpha amd64 (20150108)
NetworkManager.state:
[main]
NetworkingEnabled=true
WirelessEnabled=true
WWANEnabled=true
WimaxEnabled=true
RfKill:
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
SourcePackage: network-manager
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to wily on 2015-08-12 (43 days ago)
nmcli-nm: Error: command ['nmcli', '-f', 'all', 'nm'] failed with exit code 2: Error: Object 'nm' is unknown, try 'nmcli help'.

See original description

Tags:

Related branches

lp://staging/~network-manager/network-manager/ubuntu

Revision history for this message

Bryan Quigley (bryanquigley) wrote on 2015-09-25:

CRDA.txt Edit (303 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
Dependencies.txt Edit (9.2 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
IpAddr.txt Edit (2.1 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
IpRoute.txt Edit (416 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
IwConfig.txt Edit (656 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
JournalErrors.txt Edit (391.9 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
NetDevice.eth0.txt Edit (904 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
NetDevice.lo.txt Edit (248 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
NetDevice.virbr0.txt Edit (371 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
NetDevice.virbr0-nic.txt Edit (366 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
NetDevice.virbr1.txt Edit (371 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
NetDevice.virbr1-nic.txt Edit (366 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
NetDevice.wlan0.txt Edit (1.3 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
NetworkManager.conf.txt Edit (69 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
PciNetwork.txt Edit (762 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
ProcEnviron.txt Edit (103 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
WifiSyslog.txt Edit (488.4 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
nmcli-con.txt Edit (2.2 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
nmcli-dev.txt Edit (1.4 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")

Revision history for this message

Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote on 2015-09-26:

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Changed in network-manager (Ubuntu):
status:	New → Confirmed

Revision history for this message

Bryan Quigley (bryanquigley) wrote on 2015-09-26:

This has been fixed upstream as part of 1.0.6

Bug Watch Updater (bug-watch-updater) on 2015-09-26

Changed in network-manager:
importance:	Unknown → Medium
status:	Unknown → Fix Released

Alberto Salvia Novella (es20490446e) on 2015-09-30

Changed in network-manager (Ubuntu):
importance:	Undecided → High

Revision history for this message

Pasi Sjöholm (pasi-sjoholm) wrote on 2015-11-03:

This should get a fixed into 15.10 as it is basically killing IPv6 network connectivity.

Revision history for this message

nemith (bennetb) wrote on 2015-11-04:

I was able to rebuild the network-manager package with the following two upstream patches applied (applied cleanly)

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/NetworkManager/NetworkManager/commit/?id=a92d8b0c678e17d1cc175c3aad50afb1443785d2
http://cgit.freedesktop.org/NetworkManager/NetworkManager/commit/?id=c44069c10a4a9c696910baf0dbbefc41528f6dbe

It seemed to have fixed the issue. (there are a bunch of build issues i have ran into as well, with both rebuilding as well as tests which fail even with zero patches applied) which made this even more of a huge pain. Without dedicating hours (days?) into learning how to build ubuntu packages properly I cannot help anyone else.

I would imagine this would be trivial to add the two patches and release a new version if you are already a package maintainer.

nemith (bennetb) on 2015-11-04

summary:

- [ipv6] Network manager spews logs of Lowering IPv6 MTU (1480) to match
- device MTU (1280)
+ [ipv6] Network manager incorrectly lowers MTU when IPv6 is enabled

Revision history for this message

Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox) wrote on 2015-11-26:

The fix for this has landed in xenial-proposed; and should transition to xenial-release shortly with the fix. Once that is done, we can SRU the update to the Wily release.

Changed in network-manager (Ubuntu):
status:	Confirmed → Fix Committed
Changed in network-manager (Ubuntu Wily):
status:	New → Triaged
importance:	Undecided → High
assignee:	nobody → Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (mathieu-tl)

Revision history for this message

Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote on 2015-11-27:

This bug was fixed in the package network-manager - 1.0.4-0ubuntu7

---------------
network-manager (1.0.4-0ubuntu7) xenial; urgency=medium

  * debian/patches/lp1499827_device_avoid_undefined_mtu_c44069c1.patch
    Cherry-pick commit c44069c1 from upstream: avoid changing the MTU if it's
    undefined in NM code. (LP: #1499827)
  * debian/patches/lp1499827_dont_change_unset_mtu_a92d8b0c.patch:
    Cherry pick upstream commit a92d8b0c: don't change the MTU if we have a
    value of 0 for it; it means "default", not "0 size packets". (LP: #1499827)

-- Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre <email address hidden> Tue, 24 Nov 2015 16:13:37 -0500

Changed in network-manager (Ubuntu):
status:	Fix Committed → Fix Released

Revision history for this message

Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox) wrote on 2015-11-27:

Uploaded network-manager 1.0.4-0ubuntu5.2 to wily-proposed for review and approval by the SRU team.

description:

updated

Revision history for this message

Chris J Arges (arges) wrote on 2015-12-02: Please test proposed package

Hello Bryan, or anyone else affected,

Accepted network-manager into wily-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager/1.0.4-0ubuntu5.2 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, and change the tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

Changed in network-manager (Ubuntu Wily):
status:	Triaged → Fix Committed
tags:	added: verification-needed

Bryan Quigley (bryanquigley) on 2015-12-03

tags:

added: verification-done
removed: verification-needed

Revision history for this message

Pedro Morales (pedratan) wrote on 2015-12-09:

#10

The package in proposed is working for me.
I no longer need to set MTU by hand for the wireless to connect

Revision history for this message

Brian Murray (brian-murray) wrote on 2015-12-10: Update Released

#11

The verification of the Stable Release Update for network-manager has completed successfully and the package has now been released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.

Revision history for this message

Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote on 2015-12-10:

#12

This bug was fixed in the package network-manager - 1.0.4-0ubuntu5.2

---------------
network-manager (1.0.4-0ubuntu5.2) wily; urgency=medium