[PATCH v2 3/3] mm: add WQ_PERCPU to alloc_workqueue users

From: Marco Crivellari

Date: Tue Jan 13 2026 - 06:46:48 EST


This continues the effort to refactor workqueue APIs, which began with
the introduction of new workqueues and a new alloc_workqueue flag in:

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

The refactoring is going to alter the default behavior of
alloc_workqueue() to be unbound by default.

With the introduction of the WQ_PERCPU flag (equivalent to !WQ_UNBOUND),
any alloc_workqueue() caller that doesn’t explicitly specify WQ_UNBOUND
must now use WQ_PERCPU. For more details see the Link tag below.

In order to keep alloc_workqueue() behavior identical, explicitly request
WQ_PERCPU.

Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20250221112003.1dSuoGyc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx/
Suggested-by: Tejun Heo <tj@xxxxxxxxxx>
Signed-off-by: Marco Crivellari <marco.crivellari@xxxxxxxx>
---
mm/backing-dev.c | 2 +-
mm/slub.c | 4 +++-
mm/vmstat.c | 3 ++-
3 files changed, 6 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/mm/backing-dev.c b/mm/backing-dev.c
index 4c6f0b85a24e..861fee5e48b7 100644
--- a/mm/backing-dev.c
+++ b/mm/backing-dev.c
@@ -974,7 +974,7 @@ static int __init cgwb_init(void)
* system_percpu_wq. Put them in a separate wq and limit concurrency.
* There's no point in executing many of these in parallel.
*/
- cgwb_release_wq = alloc_workqueue("cgwb_release", 0, 1);
+ cgwb_release_wq = alloc_workqueue("cgwb_release", WQ_PERCPU, 1);
if (!cgwb_release_wq)
return -ENOMEM;

diff --git a/mm/slub.c b/mm/slub.c
index 861592ac5425..bbaa247dce2a 100644
--- a/mm/slub.c
+++ b/mm/slub.c
@@ -8542,7 +8542,9 @@ void __init kmem_cache_init(void)

void __init kmem_cache_init_late(void)
{
- flushwq = alloc_workqueue("slub_flushwq", WQ_MEM_RECLAIM, 0);
+#ifndef CONFIG_SLUB_TINY
+ flushwq = alloc_workqueue("slub_flushwq", WQ_MEM_RECLAIM | WQ_PERCPU,
+ 0);
WARN_ON(!flushwq);
}

diff --git a/mm/vmstat.c b/mm/vmstat.c
index 65de88cdf40e..580b5ad293d6 100644
--- a/mm/vmstat.c
+++ b/mm/vmstat.c
@@ -2274,7 +2274,8 @@ void __init init_mm_internals(void)
{
int ret __maybe_unused;

- mm_percpu_wq = alloc_workqueue("mm_percpu_wq", WQ_MEM_RECLAIM, 0);
+ mm_percpu_wq = alloc_workqueue("mm_percpu_wq",
+ WQ_MEM_RECLAIM | WQ_PERCPU, 0);

#ifdef CONFIG_SMP
ret = cpuhp_setup_state_nocalls(CPUHP_MM_VMSTAT_DEAD, "mm/vmstat:dead",
--
2.52.0