[PATCH 0/3] replace system_unbound_wq, add WQ_PERCPU to alloc_workqueue

From: Marco Crivellari

Date: Thu Nov 13 2025 - 11:20:41 EST


Hi,

=== Current situation: problems ===

Let's consider a nohz_full system with isolated CPUs: wq_unbound_cpumask is
set to the housekeeping CPUs, for !WQ_UNBOUND the local CPU is selected.

This leads to different scenarios if a work item is scheduled on an
isolated CPU where "delay" value is 0 or greater then 0:
schedule_delayed_work(, 0);

This will be handled by __queue_work() that will queue the work item on the
current local (isolated) CPU, while:

schedule_delayed_work(, 1);

Will move the timer on an housekeeping CPU, and schedule the work there.

Currently if a user enqueue a work item using schedule_delayed_work() the
used wq is "system_wq" (per-cpu wq) while queue_delayed_work() use
WORK_CPU_UNBOUND (used when a cpu is not specified). The same applies to
schedule_work() that is using system_wq and queue_work(), that makes use
again of WORK_CPU_UNBOUND.

This lack of consistency cannot be addressed without refactoring the API.

=== Recent changes to the WQ API ===

The following, address the recent changes in the Workqueue API:

- commit 128ea9f6ccfb ("workqueue: Add system_percpu_wq and system_dfl_wq")
- commit 930c2ea566af ("workqueue: Add new WQ_PERCPU flag")

The old workqueues will be removed in a future release cycle.

=== Introduced Changes by this series ===

1) [P 1-2] WQ_PERCPU to alloc_workqueue()

Add a new WQ_PERCPU flag to explicitly request alloc_workqueue() to be
per-cpu when WQ_UNBOUND has not been specified.

1) [P 3] Replace uses of system_unbound_wq

system_unbound_wq is to be used when locality is not required.

Switch to using system_dfl_wq because system_unbound_wq is going away as
part of a workqueue restructuring.


Thanks!

Marco Crivellari (3):
ath6kl: add WQ_PERCPU to alloc_workqueue users
cw1200: add WQ_PERCPU to alloc_workqueue users
wifi: replace use of system_unbound_wq with system_dfl_wq

drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath6kl/usb.c | 2 +-
drivers/net/wireless/st/cw1200/bh.c | 5 +++--
net/wireless/core.c | 4 ++--
net/wireless/sysfs.c | 2 +-
4 files changed, 7 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)

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2.51.1