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authorDaniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>2024-04-27 10:05:51 +0000
committerDaniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>2024-04-27 10:05:51 +0000
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Adding upstream version 5.10.209.upstream/5.10.209upstream
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+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+====
+L2TP
+====
+
+Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) allows L2 frames to be tunneled over
+an IP network.
+
+This document covers the kernel's L2TP subsystem. It documents kernel
+APIs for application developers who want to use the L2TP subsystem and
+it provides some technical details about the internal implementation
+which may be useful to kernel developers and maintainers.
+
+Overview
+========
+
+The kernel's L2TP subsystem implements the datapath for L2TPv2 and
+L2TPv3. L2TPv2 is carried over UDP. L2TPv3 is carried over UDP or
+directly over IP (protocol 115).
+
+The L2TP RFCs define two basic kinds of L2TP packets: control packets
+(the "control plane"), and data packets (the "data plane"). The kernel
+deals only with data packets. The more complex control packets are
+handled by user space.
+
+An L2TP tunnel carries one or more L2TP sessions. Each tunnel is
+associated with a socket. Each session is associated with a virtual
+netdevice, e.g. ``pppN``, ``l2tpethN``, through which data frames pass
+to/from L2TP. Fields in the L2TP header identify the tunnel or session
+and whether it is a control or data packet. When tunnels and sessions
+are set up using the Linux kernel API, we're just setting up the L2TP
+data path. All aspects of the control protocol are to be handled by
+user space.
+
+This split in responsibilities leads to a natural sequence of
+operations when establishing tunnels and sessions. The procedure looks
+like this:
+
+ 1) Create a tunnel socket. Exchange L2TP control protocol messages
+ with the peer over that socket in order to establish a tunnel.
+
+ 2) Create a tunnel context in the kernel, using information
+ obtained from the peer using the control protocol messages.
+
+ 3) Exchange L2TP control protocol messages with the peer over the
+ tunnel socket in order to establish a session.
+
+ 4) Create a session context in the kernel using information
+ obtained from the peer using the control protocol messages.
+
+L2TP APIs
+=========
+
+This section documents each userspace API of the L2TP subsystem.
+
+Tunnel Sockets
+--------------
+
+L2TPv2 always uses UDP. L2TPv3 may use UDP or IP encapsulation.
+
+To create a tunnel socket for use by L2TP, the standard POSIX
+socket API is used.
+
+For example, for a tunnel using IPv4 addresses and UDP encapsulation::
+
+ int sockfd = socket(AF_INET, SOCK_DGRAM, IPPROTO_UDP);
+
+Or for a tunnel using IPv6 addresses and IP encapsulation::
+
+ int sockfd = socket(AF_INET6, SOCK_DGRAM, IPPROTO_L2TP);
+
+UDP socket programming doesn't need to be covered here.
+
+IPPROTO_L2TP is an IP protocol type implemented by the kernel's L2TP
+subsystem. The L2TPIP socket address is defined in struct
+sockaddr_l2tpip and struct sockaddr_l2tpip6 at
+`include/uapi/linux/l2tp.h`_. The address includes the L2TP tunnel
+(connection) id. To use L2TP IP encapsulation, an L2TPv3 application
+should bind the L2TPIP socket using the locally assigned
+tunnel id. When the peer's tunnel id and IP address is known, a
+connect must be done.
+
+If the L2TP application needs to handle L2TPv3 tunnel setup requests
+from peers using L2TPIP, it must open a dedicated L2TPIP
+socket to listen for those requests and bind the socket using tunnel
+id 0 since tunnel setup requests are addressed to tunnel id 0.
+
+An L2TP tunnel and all of its sessions are automatically closed when
+its tunnel socket is closed.
+
+Netlink API
+-----------
+
+L2TP applications use netlink to manage L2TP tunnel and session
+instances in the kernel. The L2TP netlink API is defined in
+`include/uapi/linux/l2tp.h`_.
+
+L2TP uses `Generic Netlink`_ (GENL). Several commands are defined:
+Create, Delete, Modify and Get for tunnel and session
+instances, e.g. ``L2TP_CMD_TUNNEL_CREATE``. The API header lists the
+netlink attribute types that can be used with each command.
+
+Tunnel and session instances are identified by a locally unique
+32-bit id. L2TP tunnel ids are given by ``L2TP_ATTR_CONN_ID`` and
+``L2TP_ATTR_PEER_CONN_ID`` attributes and L2TP session ids are given
+by ``L2TP_ATTR_SESSION_ID`` and ``L2TP_ATTR_PEER_SESSION_ID``
+attributes. If netlink is used to manage L2TPv2 tunnel and session
+instances, the L2TPv2 16-bit tunnel/session id is cast to a 32-bit
+value in these attributes.
+
+In the ``L2TP_CMD_TUNNEL_CREATE`` command, ``L2TP_ATTR_FD`` tells the
+kernel the tunnel socket fd being used. If not specified, the kernel
+creates a kernel socket for the tunnel, using IP parameters set in
+``L2TP_ATTR_IP[6]_SADDR``, ``L2TP_ATTR_IP[6]_DADDR``,
+``L2TP_ATTR_UDP_SPORT``, ``L2TP_ATTR_UDP_DPORT`` attributes. Kernel
+sockets are used to implement unmanaged L2TPv3 tunnels (iproute2's "ip
+l2tp" commands). If ``L2TP_ATTR_FD`` is given, it must be a socket fd
+that is already bound and connected. There is more information about
+unmanaged tunnels later in this document.
+
+``L2TP_CMD_TUNNEL_CREATE`` attributes:-
+
+================== ======== ===
+Attribute Required Use
+================== ======== ===
+CONN_ID Y Sets the tunnel (connection) id.
+PEER_CONN_ID Y Sets the peer tunnel (connection) id.
+PROTO_VERSION Y Protocol version. 2 or 3.
+ENCAP_TYPE Y Encapsulation type: UDP or IP.
+FD N Tunnel socket file descriptor.
+UDP_CSUM N Enable IPv4 UDP checksums. Used only if FD is
+ not set.
+UDP_ZERO_CSUM6_TX N Zero IPv6 UDP checksum on transmit. Used only
+ if FD is not set.
+UDP_ZERO_CSUM6_RX N Zero IPv6 UDP checksum on receive. Used only if
+ FD is not set.
+IP_SADDR N IPv4 source address. Used only if FD is not
+ set.
+IP_DADDR N IPv4 destination address. Used only if FD is
+ not set.
+UDP_SPORT N UDP source port. Used only if FD is not set.
+UDP_DPORT N UDP destination port. Used only if FD is not
+ set.
+IP6_SADDR N IPv6 source address. Used only if FD is not
+ set.
+IP6_DADDR N IPv6 destination address. Used only if FD is
+ not set.
+DEBUG N Debug flags.
+================== ======== ===
+
+``L2TP_CMD_TUNNEL_DESTROY`` attributes:-
+
+================== ======== ===
+Attribute Required Use
+================== ======== ===
+CONN_ID Y Identifies the tunnel id to be destroyed.
+================== ======== ===
+
+``L2TP_CMD_TUNNEL_MODIFY`` attributes:-
+
+================== ======== ===
+Attribute Required Use
+================== ======== ===
+CONN_ID Y Identifies the tunnel id to be modified.
+DEBUG N Debug flags.
+================== ======== ===
+
+``L2TP_CMD_TUNNEL_GET`` attributes:-
+
+================== ======== ===
+Attribute Required Use
+================== ======== ===
+CONN_ID N Identifies the tunnel id to be queried.
+ Ignored in DUMP requests.
+================== ======== ===
+
+``L2TP_CMD_SESSION_CREATE`` attributes:-
+
+================== ======== ===
+Attribute Required Use
+================== ======== ===
+CONN_ID Y The parent tunnel id.
+SESSION_ID Y Sets the session id.
+PEER_SESSION_ID Y Sets the parent session id.
+PW_TYPE Y Sets the pseudowire type.
+DEBUG N Debug flags.
+RECV_SEQ N Enable rx data sequence numbers.
+SEND_SEQ N Enable tx data sequence numbers.
+LNS_MODE N Enable LNS mode (auto-enable data sequence
+ numbers).
+RECV_TIMEOUT N Timeout to wait when reordering received
+ packets.
+L2SPEC_TYPE N Sets layer2-specific-sublayer type (L2TPv3
+ only).
+COOKIE N Sets optional cookie (L2TPv3 only).
+PEER_COOKIE N Sets optional peer cookie (L2TPv3 only).
+IFNAME N Sets interface name (L2TPv3 only).
+================== ======== ===
+
+For Ethernet session types, this will create an l2tpeth virtual
+interface which can then be configured as required. For PPP session
+types, a PPPoL2TP socket must also be opened and connected, mapping it
+onto the new session. This is covered in "PPPoL2TP Sockets" later.
+
+``L2TP_CMD_SESSION_DESTROY`` attributes:-
+
+================== ======== ===
+Attribute Required Use
+================== ======== ===
+CONN_ID Y Identifies the parent tunnel id of the session
+ to be destroyed.
+SESSION_ID Y Identifies the session id to be destroyed.
+IFNAME N Identifies the session by interface name. If
+ set, this overrides any CONN_ID and SESSION_ID
+ attributes. Currently supported for L2TPv3
+ Ethernet sessions only.
+================== ======== ===
+
+``L2TP_CMD_SESSION_MODIFY`` attributes:-
+
+================== ======== ===
+Attribute Required Use
+================== ======== ===
+CONN_ID Y Identifies the parent tunnel id of the session
+ to be modified.
+SESSION_ID Y Identifies the session id to be modified.
+IFNAME N Identifies the session by interface name. If
+ set, this overrides any CONN_ID and SESSION_ID
+ attributes. Currently supported for L2TPv3
+ Ethernet sessions only.
+DEBUG N Debug flags.
+RECV_SEQ N Enable rx data sequence numbers.
+SEND_SEQ N Enable tx data sequence numbers.
+LNS_MODE N Enable LNS mode (auto-enable data sequence
+ numbers).
+RECV_TIMEOUT N Timeout to wait when reordering received
+ packets.
+================== ======== ===
+
+``L2TP_CMD_SESSION_GET`` attributes:-
+
+================== ======== ===
+Attribute Required Use
+================== ======== ===
+CONN_ID N Identifies the tunnel id to be queried.
+ Ignored for DUMP requests.
+SESSION_ID N Identifies the session id to be queried.
+ Ignored for DUMP requests.
+IFNAME N Identifies the session by interface name.
+ If set, this overrides any CONN_ID and
+ SESSION_ID attributes. Ignored for DUMP
+ requests. Currently supported for L2TPv3
+ Ethernet sessions only.
+================== ======== ===
+
+Application developers should refer to `include/uapi/linux/l2tp.h`_ for
+netlink command and attribute definitions.
+
+Sample userspace code using libmnl_:
+
+ - Open L2TP netlink socket::
+
+ struct nl_sock *nl_sock;
+ int l2tp_nl_family_id;
+
+ nl_sock = nl_socket_alloc();
+ genl_connect(nl_sock);
+ genl_id = genl_ctrl_resolve(nl_sock, L2TP_GENL_NAME);
+
+ - Create a tunnel::
+
+ struct nlmsghdr *nlh;
+ struct genlmsghdr *gnlh;
+
+ nlh = mnl_nlmsg_put_header(buf);
+ nlh->nlmsg_type = genl_id; /* assigned to genl socket */
+ nlh->nlmsg_flags = NLM_F_REQUEST | NLM_F_ACK;
+ nlh->nlmsg_seq = seq;
+
+ gnlh = mnl_nlmsg_put_extra_header(nlh, sizeof(*gnlh));
+ gnlh->cmd = L2TP_CMD_TUNNEL_CREATE;
+ gnlh->version = L2TP_GENL_VERSION;
+ gnlh->reserved = 0;
+
+ mnl_attr_put_u32(nlh, L2TP_ATTR_FD, tunl_sock_fd);
+ mnl_attr_put_u32(nlh, L2TP_ATTR_CONN_ID, tid);
+ mnl_attr_put_u32(nlh, L2TP_ATTR_PEER_CONN_ID, peer_tid);
+ mnl_attr_put_u8(nlh, L2TP_ATTR_PROTO_VERSION, protocol_version);
+ mnl_attr_put_u16(nlh, L2TP_ATTR_ENCAP_TYPE, encap);
+
+ - Create a session::
+
+ struct nlmsghdr *nlh;
+ struct genlmsghdr *gnlh;
+
+ nlh = mnl_nlmsg_put_header(buf);
+ nlh->nlmsg_type = genl_id; /* assigned to genl socket */
+ nlh->nlmsg_flags = NLM_F_REQUEST | NLM_F_ACK;
+ nlh->nlmsg_seq = seq;
+
+ gnlh = mnl_nlmsg_put_extra_header(nlh, sizeof(*gnlh));
+ gnlh->cmd = L2TP_CMD_SESSION_CREATE;
+ gnlh->version = L2TP_GENL_VERSION;
+ gnlh->reserved = 0;
+
+ mnl_attr_put_u32(nlh, L2TP_ATTR_CONN_ID, tid);
+ mnl_attr_put_u32(nlh, L2TP_ATTR_PEER_CONN_ID, peer_tid);
+ mnl_attr_put_u32(nlh, L2TP_ATTR_SESSION_ID, sid);
+ mnl_attr_put_u32(nlh, L2TP_ATTR_PEER_SESSION_ID, peer_sid);
+ mnl_attr_put_u16(nlh, L2TP_ATTR_PW_TYPE, pwtype);
+ /* there are other session options which can be set using netlink
+ * attributes during session creation -- see l2tp.h
+ */
+
+ - Delete a session::
+
+ struct nlmsghdr *nlh;
+ struct genlmsghdr *gnlh;
+
+ nlh = mnl_nlmsg_put_header(buf);
+ nlh->nlmsg_type = genl_id; /* assigned to genl socket */
+ nlh->nlmsg_flags = NLM_F_REQUEST | NLM_F_ACK;
+ nlh->nlmsg_seq = seq;
+
+ gnlh = mnl_nlmsg_put_extra_header(nlh, sizeof(*gnlh));
+ gnlh->cmd = L2TP_CMD_SESSION_DELETE;
+ gnlh->version = L2TP_GENL_VERSION;
+ gnlh->reserved = 0;
+
+ mnl_attr_put_u32(nlh, L2TP_ATTR_CONN_ID, tid);
+ mnl_attr_put_u32(nlh, L2TP_ATTR_SESSION_ID, sid);
+
+ - Delete a tunnel and all of its sessions (if any)::
+
+ struct nlmsghdr *nlh;
+ struct genlmsghdr *gnlh;
+
+ nlh = mnl_nlmsg_put_header(buf);
+ nlh->nlmsg_type = genl_id; /* assigned to genl socket */
+ nlh->nlmsg_flags = NLM_F_REQUEST | NLM_F_ACK;
+ nlh->nlmsg_seq = seq;
+
+ gnlh = mnl_nlmsg_put_extra_header(nlh, sizeof(*gnlh));
+ gnlh->cmd = L2TP_CMD_TUNNEL_DELETE;
+ gnlh->version = L2TP_GENL_VERSION;
+ gnlh->reserved = 0;
+
+ mnl_attr_put_u32(nlh, L2TP_ATTR_CONN_ID, tid);
+
+PPPoL2TP Session Socket API
+---------------------------
+
+For PPP session types, a PPPoL2TP socket must be opened and connected
+to the L2TP session.
+
+When creating PPPoL2TP sockets, the application provides information
+to the kernel about the tunnel and session in a socket connect()
+call. Source and destination tunnel and session ids are provided, as
+well as the file descriptor of a UDP or L2TPIP socket. See struct
+pppol2tp_addr in `include/linux/if_pppol2tp.h`_. For historical reasons,
+there are unfortunately slightly different address structures for
+L2TPv2/L2TPv3 IPv4/IPv6 tunnels and userspace must use the appropriate
+structure that matches the tunnel socket type.
+
+Userspace may control behavior of the tunnel or session using
+setsockopt and ioctl on the PPPoX socket. The following socket
+options are supported:-
+
+========= ===========================================================
+DEBUG bitmask of debug message categories. See below.
+SENDSEQ - 0 => don't send packets with sequence numbers
+ - 1 => send packets with sequence numbers
+RECVSEQ - 0 => receive packet sequence numbers are optional
+ - 1 => drop receive packets without sequence numbers
+LNSMODE - 0 => act as LAC.
+ - 1 => act as LNS.
+REORDERTO reorder timeout (in millisecs). If 0, don't try to reorder.
+========= ===========================================================
+
+In addition to the standard PPP ioctls, a PPPIOCGL2TPSTATS is provided
+to retrieve tunnel and session statistics from the kernel using the
+PPPoX socket of the appropriate tunnel or session.
+
+Sample userspace code:
+
+ - Create session PPPoX data socket::
+
+ struct sockaddr_pppol2tp sax;
+ int fd;
+
+ /* Note, the tunnel socket must be bound already, else it
+ * will not be ready
+ */
+ sax.sa_family = AF_PPPOX;
+ sax.sa_protocol = PX_PROTO_OL2TP;
+ sax.pppol2tp.fd = tunnel_fd;
+ sax.pppol2tp.addr.sin_addr.s_addr = addr->sin_addr.s_addr;
+ sax.pppol2tp.addr.sin_port = addr->sin_port;
+ sax.pppol2tp.addr.sin_family = AF_INET;
+ sax.pppol2tp.s_tunnel = tunnel_id;
+ sax.pppol2tp.s_session = session_id;
+ sax.pppol2tp.d_tunnel = peer_tunnel_id;
+ sax.pppol2tp.d_session = peer_session_id;
+
+ /* session_fd is the fd of the session's PPPoL2TP socket.
+ * tunnel_fd is the fd of the tunnel UDP / L2TPIP socket.
+ */
+ fd = connect(session_fd, (struct sockaddr *)&sax, sizeof(sax));
+ if (fd < 0 ) {
+ return -errno;
+ }
+ return 0;
+
+Old L2TPv2-only API
+-------------------
+
+When L2TP was first added to the Linux kernel in 2.6.23, it
+implemented only L2TPv2 and did not include a netlink API. Instead,
+tunnel and session instances in the kernel were managed directly using
+only PPPoL2TP sockets. The PPPoL2TP socket is used as described in
+section "PPPoL2TP Session Socket API" but tunnel and session instances
+are automatically created on a connect() of the socket instead of
+being created by a separate netlink request:
+
+ - Tunnels are managed using a tunnel management socket which is a
+ dedicated PPPoL2TP socket, connected to (invalid) session
+ id 0. The L2TP tunnel instance is created when the PPPoL2TP
+ tunnel management socket is connected and is destroyed when the
+ socket is closed.
+
+ - Session instances are created in the kernel when a PPPoL2TP
+ socket is connected to a non-zero session id. Session parameters
+ are set using setsockopt. The L2TP session instance is destroyed
+ when the socket is closed.
+
+This API is still supported but its use is discouraged. Instead, new
+L2TPv2 applications should use netlink to first create the tunnel and
+session, then create a PPPoL2TP socket for the session.
+
+Unmanaged L2TPv3 tunnels
+------------------------
+
+The kernel L2TP subsystem also supports static (unmanaged) L2TPv3
+tunnels. Unmanaged tunnels have no userspace tunnel socket, and
+exchange no control messages with the peer to set up the tunnel; the
+tunnel is configured manually at each end of the tunnel. All
+configuration is done using netlink. There is no need for an L2TP
+userspace application in this case -- the tunnel socket is created by
+the kernel and configured using parameters sent in the
+``L2TP_CMD_TUNNEL_CREATE`` netlink request. The ``ip`` utility of
+``iproute2`` has commands for managing static L2TPv3 tunnels; do ``ip
+l2tp help`` for more information.
+
+Debugging
+---------
+
+The L2TP subsystem offers a range of debugging interfaces through the
+debugfs filesystem.
+
+To access these interfaces, the debugfs filesystem must first be mounted::
+
+ # mount -t debugfs debugfs /debug
+
+Files under the l2tp directory can then be accessed, providing a summary
+of the current population of tunnel and session contexts existing in the
+kernel::
+
+ # cat /debug/l2tp/tunnels
+
+The debugfs files should not be used by applications to obtain L2TP
+state information because the file format is subject to change. It is
+implemented to provide extra debug information to help diagnose
+problems. Applications should instead use the netlink API.
+
+In addition the L2TP subsystem implements tracepoints using the standard
+kernel event tracing API. The available L2TP events can be reviewed as
+follows::
+
+ # find /debug/tracing/events/l2tp
+
+Finally, /proc/net/pppol2tp is also provided for backwards compatibility
+with the original pppol2tp code. It lists information about L2TPv2
+tunnels and sessions only. Its use is discouraged.
+
+Internal Implementation
+=======================
+
+This section is for kernel developers and maintainers.
+
+Sockets
+-------
+
+UDP sockets are implemented by the networking core. When an L2TP
+tunnel is created using a UDP socket, the socket is set up as an
+encapsulated UDP socket by setting encap_rcv and encap_destroy
+callbacks on the UDP socket. l2tp_udp_encap_recv is called when
+packets are received on the socket. l2tp_udp_encap_destroy is called
+when userspace closes the socket.
+
+L2TPIP sockets are implemented in `net/l2tp/l2tp_ip.c`_ and
+`net/l2tp/l2tp_ip6.c`_.
+
+Tunnels
+-------
+
+The kernel keeps a struct l2tp_tunnel context per L2TP tunnel. The
+l2tp_tunnel is always associated with a UDP or L2TP/IP socket and
+keeps a list of sessions in the tunnel. When a tunnel is first
+registered with L2TP core, the reference count on the socket is
+increased. This ensures that the socket cannot be removed while L2TP's
+data structures reference it.
+
+Tunnels are identified by a unique tunnel id. The id is 16-bit for
+L2TPv2 and 32-bit for L2TPv3. Internally, the id is stored as a 32-bit
+value.
+
+Tunnels are kept in a per-net list, indexed by tunnel id. The tunnel
+id namespace is shared by L2TPv2 and L2TPv3. The tunnel context can be
+derived from the socket's sk_user_data.
+
+Handling tunnel socket close is perhaps the most tricky part of the
+L2TP implementation. If userspace closes a tunnel socket, the L2TP
+tunnel and all of its sessions must be closed and destroyed. Since the
+tunnel context holds a ref on the tunnel socket, the socket's
+sk_destruct won't be called until the tunnel sock_put's its
+socket. For UDP sockets, when userspace closes the tunnel socket, the
+socket's encap_destroy handler is invoked, which L2TP uses to initiate
+its tunnel close actions. For L2TPIP sockets, the socket's close
+handler initiates the same tunnel close actions. All sessions are
+first closed. Each session drops its tunnel ref. When the tunnel ref
+reaches zero, the tunnel puts its socket ref. When the socket is
+eventually destroyed, it's sk_destruct finally frees the L2TP tunnel
+context.
+
+Sessions
+--------
+
+The kernel keeps a struct l2tp_session context for each session. Each
+session has private data which is used for data specific to the
+session type. With L2TPv2, the session always carries PPP
+traffic. With L2TPv3, the session can carry Ethernet frames (Ethernet
+pseudowire) or other data types such as PPP, ATM, HDLC or Frame
+Relay. Linux currently implements only Ethernet and PPP session types.
+
+Some L2TP session types also have a socket (PPP pseudowires) while
+others do not (Ethernet pseudowires). We can't therefore use the
+socket reference count as the reference count for session
+contexts. The L2TP implementation therefore has its own internal
+reference counts on the session contexts.
+
+Like tunnels, L2TP sessions are identified by a unique
+session id. Just as with tunnel ids, the session id is 16-bit for
+L2TPv2 and 32-bit for L2TPv3. Internally, the id is stored as a 32-bit
+value.
+
+Sessions hold a ref on their parent tunnel to ensure that the tunnel
+stays extant while one or more sessions references it.
+
+Sessions are kept in a per-tunnel list, indexed by session id. L2TPv3
+sessions are also kept in a per-net list indexed by session id,
+because L2TPv3 session ids are unique across all tunnels and L2TPv3
+data packets do not contain a tunnel id in the header. This list is
+therefore needed to find the session context associated with a
+received data packet when the tunnel context cannot be derived from
+the tunnel socket.
+
+Although the L2TPv3 RFC specifies that L2TPv3 session ids are not
+scoped by the tunnel, the kernel does not police this for L2TPv3 UDP
+tunnels and does not add sessions of L2TPv3 UDP tunnels into the
+per-net session list. In the UDP receive code, we must trust that the
+tunnel can be identified using the tunnel socket's sk_user_data and
+lookup the session in the tunnel's session list instead of the per-net
+session list.
+
+PPP
+---
+
+`net/l2tp/l2tp_ppp.c`_ implements the PPPoL2TP socket family. Each PPP
+session has a PPPoL2TP socket.
+
+The PPPoL2TP socket's sk_user_data references the l2tp_session.
+
+Userspace sends and receives PPP packets over L2TP using a PPPoL2TP
+socket. Only PPP control frames pass over this socket: PPP data
+packets are handled entirely by the kernel, passing between the L2TP
+session and its associated ``pppN`` netdev through the PPP channel
+interface of the kernel PPP subsystem.
+
+The L2TP PPP implementation handles the closing of a PPPoL2TP socket
+by closing its corresponding L2TP session. This is complicated because
+it must consider racing with netlink session create/destroy requests
+and pppol2tp_connect trying to reconnect with a session that is in the
+process of being closed. Unlike tunnels, PPP sessions do not hold a
+ref on their associated socket, so code must be careful to sock_hold
+the socket where necessary. For all the details, see commit
+3d609342cc04129ff7568e19316ce3d7451a27e8.
+
+Ethernet
+--------
+
+`net/l2tp/l2tp_eth.c`_ implements L2TPv3 Ethernet pseudowires. It
+manages a netdev for each session.
+
+L2TP Ethernet sessions are created and destroyed by netlink request,
+or are destroyed when the tunnel is destroyed. Unlike PPP sessions,
+Ethernet sessions do not have an associated socket.
+
+Miscellaneous
+=============
+
+RFCs
+----
+
+The kernel code implements the datapath features specified in the
+following RFCs:
+
+======= =============== ===================================
+RFC2661 L2TPv2 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2661
+RFC3931 L2TPv3 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3931
+RFC4719 L2TPv3 Ethernet https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4719
+======= =============== ===================================
+
+Implementations
+---------------
+
+A number of open source applications use the L2TP kernel subsystem:
+
+============ ==============================================
+iproute2 https://github.com/shemminger/iproute2
+go-l2tp https://github.com/katalix/go-l2tp
+tunneldigger https://github.com/wlanslovenija/tunneldigger
+xl2tpd https://github.com/xelerance/xl2tpd
+============ ==============================================
+
+Limitations
+-----------
+
+The current implementation has a number of limitations:
+
+ 1) Multiple UDP sockets with the same 5-tuple address cannot be
+ used. The kernel's tunnel context is identified using private
+ data associated with the socket so it is important that each
+ socket is uniquely identified by its address.
+
+ 2) Interfacing with openvswitch is not yet implemented. It may be
+ useful to map OVS Ethernet and VLAN ports into L2TPv3 tunnels.
+
+ 3) VLAN pseudowires are implemented using an ``l2tpethN`` interface
+ configured with a VLAN sub-interface. Since L2TPv3 VLAN
+ pseudowires carry one and only one VLAN, it may be better to use
+ a single netdevice rather than an ``l2tpethN`` and ``l2tpethN``:M
+ pair per VLAN session. The netlink attribute
+ ``L2TP_ATTR_VLAN_ID`` was added for this, but it was never
+ implemented.
+
+Testing
+-------
+
+Unmanaged L2TPv3 Ethernet features are tested by the kernel's built-in
+selftests. See `tools/testing/selftests/net/l2tp.sh`_.
+
+Another test suite, l2tp-ktest_, covers all
+of the L2TP APIs and tunnel/session types. This may be integrated into
+the kernel's built-in L2TP selftests in the future.
+
+.. Links
+.. _Generic Netlink: generic_netlink.html
+.. _libmnl: https://www.netfilter.org/projects/libmnl
+.. _include/uapi/linux/l2tp.h: ../../../include/uapi/linux/l2tp.h
+.. _include/linux/if_pppol2tp.h: ../../../include/linux/if_pppol2tp.h
+.. _net/l2tp/l2tp_ip.c: ../../../net/l2tp/l2tp_ip.c
+.. _net/l2tp/l2tp_ip6.c: ../../../net/l2tp/l2tp_ip6.c
+.. _net/l2tp/l2tp_ppp.c: ../../../net/l2tp/l2tp_ppp.c
+.. _net/l2tp/l2tp_eth.c: ../../../net/l2tp/l2tp_eth.c
+.. _tools/testing/selftests/net/l2tp.sh: ../../../tools/testing/selftests/net/l2tp.sh
+.. _l2tp-ktest: https://github.com/katalix/l2tp-ktest