Re: [PATCH v5] workqueue: Fix edge cases for calc of pool's cpumask

[Tejun Heo]

Hello, Michael.

On Thu, Jul 27, 2017 at 12:06:22PM -0500, Michael Bringmann wrote:
> 
> On NUMA systems with dynamic processors, the content of the cpumask
> may change over time.  As new processors are added via DLPAR operations,
> workqueues are created for them.  Depending upon the order in which CPUs
> are added/removed, we may run into problems with the content of the
> cpumask used by the workqueues.  This patch deals with situations where
> the online cpumask for a node is a proper superset of possible cpumask
> for the node.  It also deals with edge cases where the order in which
> CPUs are removed/added from the online cpumask may leave the set for a
> node empty, and require execution by CPUs on another node.

I think we already talked about this before but can you please note
that this is a bandaid to workaround an underlying bug.  This isn't
something which normally happens on NUMA sytems with dynamic
processors.  This is bandaiding a hole so that the machine at least
doesn't crash immediately until we can get the underlying problem
fixed properly.

Thanks.

-- 
tejun