Add a rant about getaddrinfo(3)

doc/sphinx/phk/index.rst

@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ You may or may not want to know what Poul-Henning thinks.
 .. toctree::
 	:maxdepth: 1
 
+	ip_address.rst
 	vdd19q3.rst
 	quic.rst
 	VSV00003.rst

doc/sphinx/phk/ip_address.rst

+..
+	Copyright (c) 2021 Varnish Software AS
+	SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-2-Clause
+	See LICENSE file for full text of license
+
+.. _phk_ip_address:
+
+======================================
+IP Addresses - A long expected problem
+======================================
+
+I'm old enough to remember `HOSTS.TXT` and the introduction of the DNS system.
+
+Those were the days when you got a class B network by sending a
+polite letter to California, getting a polite letter back, and then,
+some months later, when
+`RFC1166 INTERNET NUMBERS <https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1166>`_ 
+arrived with in semi-annual packet of printed RFCs,
+find out that letter had at typo and you had configured all of
+the European Parliaments 1200 computers on 136.172/16 instead of
+136.173/16.
+
+But things were not simpler, if anything they were far more complex,
+because TCP/IP was not, as today, the only protocol that mattered.
+
+In addition to TCP/IP, there were IBM's SNA, Digitals DecNet,
+ApolloRing, Banyan/VINES, Novell NetWare, X.21, X.25, X.75, and the
+whole CCITT-OSI-"Intelligent Network" telecom disaster that never
+got of the ground.
+
+This is why DNS packets have a `class` field which can be set to
+`Hesiod` or `CHAOS` in addition to `the Internet`:  The idea was
+that all the different protocols would get a number each, and we
+would have "The One Directory To Rule Them All".
+
+Largely because of this, a new and "protocol agnostic" lookup
+functions were designed: `getaddrinfo(3)` and `getnameinfo(3)`,
+but of course for IP they were supposed to be backwards compatible
+because there were *thousands* of users out there already.
+
+This is why `telnet 80.1440` tries to connect to `80.0.5.160`,
+why `ping 0x7f000001` becomes `127.0.0.1` and `0127.0.0.1`
+becomes `87.0.0.1`.
+
+If you read the manual page for `getaddrinfo(3)` you will find
+that it does not tell you that, it merely says it 
+`conforms to IEEE Std 1001`.
+
+But everybody knew what that was back in 1990, and nobody had firewalls
+anyway because Cheswick & Bellowins book
+`Firewalls and Internet Security <http://www.wilyhacker.com/>`_
+was not published until 1994, so no worries ?
+
+As is often the case with 'designed for the future' the `getaddrinfo(3)`
+API instantly fossilized, hit by a freeze-ray in the 'the Unix™ wars'.
+
+This is why, when IPv4 numbers started to look like a finite resource,
+and the old A-, B- and C- class networks got dissolved into Classless
+Inter-Domain Routing or "CIDR" netmasks of any random size, getaddrinfo(3)
+did not grow to be able to translate "192.168.61/23" into something useful.
+
+I belive there were also some lilliputian dispute about the fact that
+`192.168.61` would return `192.168.0.61` to stay backwards compatible,
+whereas `192.168.61/23` would return `192.168.61.0 + 255.255.254.0`.
+
+Because of this, Varnish uses `getaddrinfo(3)` everywhere but one single
+place:  Parsing of ACL specifications in VCL.  First we have to use our
+own parser to check if it is a CIDR entry and if not we ask `getaddrinfo(3)`.
+
+The reason for this rant, is that somebody noticed that `ping
+0127.0.0.1` didn't go to `127.0.0.1` as they expected.
+
+That has just become CVE-2021-29418 and CVE-2021-28918 and will
+probably become a dozen more, once the CVE-trophy-hunters go to town.
+
+All IP number strings enter Varnish from trusted points, either
+as command line arguments (`-a`, `-b`, `-M` etc.), 
+in the VCL source (`backend`, `acl` etc.) or as PROXYv1 header
+strings from the TLS-stripper in front of Varnish.
+
+Of course, VCL allows you to do pretty much anything, including::
+
+    if (std.ip(req.http.trustme) ~ important_acl) {
+         ...
+    }
+
+If you do something like that, you may want to a) Consider the wisdom
+of trusting IP#'s from strangers and b) Think about this "critical
+netmask problem".
+
+Otherwise, I do not expect this new "critical netmask problem" to
+result in any source code changes in Varnish.
+
+If and when the various UNIX-oid operating systems, and the smoking
+remains of the "serious UNIX industry", (IEEE ?  The Austin Group
+?  The Open Group ?  Whatever they are called these days) get their
+act together, and renovate the `getaddrinfo(3)` API, Varnish will
+automatically pick that up an use it.
+
+Should they, in a flash of enlightenment, also make `getaddrinfo(3)`
+useful for parsing these newfangled CIDR adresses we got in 1993,
+I will be more than happy to ditch `vcc_acl_try_netnotation()` too.
+
+Until next time,
+
+Poul-Henning, 2021-03-30