Re: [PATCH net v3] net/mlx5: Use effective affinity mask for IRQ selection

From: Tariq Toukan

Date: Sun Jun 07 2026 - 04:40:11 EST




On 05/06/2026 13:21, Fushuai Wang wrote:
From: Fushuai Wang <wangfushuai@xxxxxxxxx>

When a sf is created after a CPU has been taken offline, the IRQ pool may
contain IRQs with affinity masks that include the offline CPU. Since only
online CPUs should be considered for IRQ placement, cpumask_subset() check
would fail because the iter_mask contains offline CPUs that are not present
in req_mask, causing sf creation to fail.

This is an example:
1. When mlx5 driver loads, it initializes the IRQ pools.
For sf_ctrl_pool with ≤64 sf:
- xa_num_irqs = {N, N} (There is only one slot)
2. When the first SF is created:
- The ctrl IRQ is allocated with mask=cpu_online_mask={0-191}
2. We take CPU 20 offline
3. Existing ctl irq still have mask={0-191}
4. Create a new SF:
- req_mask={0-19,21-191}
- iter_mask={0-191}
- {0-191} is NOT a subset of {0-19,21-191}
- least_loaded_irq=NULL
5. Try to allocate a new irq via irq_pool_request_irq()
6. xa_alloc() fails because the pool is full(There is only one slot)
7. sf creation fails with error

Use irq_get_effective_affinity_mask() instead, which returns the IRQ's
actual effective affinity that already excludes offline CPUs.

Fixes: 061f5b23588a ("net/mlx5: SF, Use all available cpu for setting cpu affinity")
Suggested-by: Shay Drory <shayd@xxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Fushuai Wang <wangfushuai@xxxxxxxxx>
---
v2->v3: Separate the patchset to two patches, reverse xmas tree coding style fix.
v1->v2: Use mlx5_irq_get_affinity_mask() api

previous discussion:
https://lore.kernel.org/all/20260603072657.10868-1-fushuai.wang@xxxxxxxxx/T/#u
https://lore.kernel.org/all/20260604125705.21241-1-fushuai.wang@xxxxxxxxx/T/#u

drivers/net/ethernet/mellanox/mlx5/core/irq_affinity.c | 5 ++++-
1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/drivers/net/ethernet/mellanox/mlx5/core/irq_affinity.c b/drivers/net/ethernet/mellanox/mlx5/core/irq_affinity.c
index 994fe83da4be..a0bb8ee44e35 100644
--- a/drivers/net/ethernet/mellanox/mlx5/core/irq_affinity.c
+++ b/drivers/net/ethernet/mellanox/mlx5/core/irq_affinity.c
@@ -105,9 +105,12 @@ irq_pool_find_least_loaded(struct mlx5_irq_pool *pool, const struct cpumask *req
lockdep_assert_held(&pool->lock);
xa_for_each_range(&pool->irqs, index, iter, start, end) {
- struct cpumask *iter_mask = mlx5_irq_get_affinity_mask(iter);
int iter_refcount = mlx5_irq_read_locked(iter);
+ const struct cpumask *iter_mask;
+ iter_mask = irq_get_effective_affinity_mask(mlx5_irq_get_irq(iter));
+ if (!iter_mask)
+ continue;
if (!cpumask_subset(iter_mask, req_mask))
/* skip IRQs with a mask which is not subset of req_mask */
continue;

Reviewed-by: Tariq Toukan <tariqt@xxxxxxxxxx>

Thanks for your patch.