[PATCH v13 6/8] blk-mq: prevent offlining hk CPUs with associated online isolated CPUs

From: Aaron Tomlin

Date: Tue May 12 2026 - 20:56:45 EST


From: Daniel Wagner <wagi@xxxxxxxxxx>

When isolcpus=io_queue is enabled and the last housekeeping CPU
for a given hctx goes offline, no CPU would be left to handle I/O.
To prevent I/O stalls, disallow offlining housekeeping CPUs that are
still serving isolated CPUs.

Signed-off-by: Daniel Wagner <wagi@xxxxxxxxxx>
Reviewed-by: Hannes Reinecke <hare@xxxxxxx>
[atomlin:
- Removed duplicate paragraph from commit message
- Allow offlining of non-housekeeping CPUs
- Fix logic flaw that prematurely rejected valid offline requests
- Iterated over cpu_online_mask and manually reverse-mapped CPUs to
correctly detect isolated CPUs, as blk_mq_map_swqueue()
intentionally prunes them from hctx->cpumask
- Prevented a TOCTOU NULL pointer dereference race against
concurrent device teardown by using READ_ONCE() to fetch the disk
pointer]
Signed-off-by: Aaron Tomlin <atomlin@xxxxxxxxxxx>
---
block/blk-mq.c | 56 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1 file changed, 56 insertions(+)

diff --git a/block/blk-mq.c b/block/blk-mq.c
index 4c5c16cce4f8..afe0c0bf7e8a 100644
--- a/block/blk-mq.c
+++ b/block/blk-mq.c
@@ -3720,6 +3720,57 @@ static bool blk_mq_hctx_has_requests(struct blk_mq_hw_ctx *hctx)
return data.has_rq;
}

+static bool blk_mq_hctx_can_offline_hk_cpu(struct blk_mq_hw_ctx *hctx,
+ unsigned int this_cpu)
+{
+ const struct cpumask *hk_mask = housekeeping_cpumask(HK_TYPE_IO_QUEUE);
+ struct gendisk *disk;
+ int cpu, fallback_isolated_cpu = -1;
+
+ /*
+ * If the CPU being offlined is not a housekeeping CPU,
+ * offlining it will not strand isolated CPUs. Allow it.
+ */
+ if (!cpumask_test_cpu(this_cpu, hk_mask))
+ return true;
+ /*
+ * Iterate over all online CPUs and manually check their mapping.
+ * We cannot use hctx->cpumask here because blk_mq_map_swqueue()
+ * intentionally strips isolated CPUs from it to prevent kworker
+ * routing.
+ */
+ for_each_online_cpu(cpu) {
+ struct blk_mq_hw_ctx *h;
+
+ if (cpu == this_cpu)
+ continue;
+
+ h = blk_mq_map_queue_type(hctx->queue, hctx->type, cpu);
+ if (h != hctx)
+ continue;
+
+ if (cpumask_test_cpu(cpu, hk_mask))
+ return true;
+
+ if (fallback_isolated_cpu == -1)
+ fallback_isolated_cpu = cpu;
+ }
+
+ if (fallback_isolated_cpu != -1) {
+ /*
+ * Use READ_ONCE() to prevent compiler double-fetch TOCTOU
+ * issues if the disk is removed concurrently.
+ */
+ disk = READ_ONCE(hctx->queue->disk);
+ pr_warn("%s: trying to offline hctx%d but online isolated CPU %d is still mapped to it\n",
+ disk ? disk->disk_name : "?", hctx->queue_num,
+ fallback_isolated_cpu);
+ return false;
+ }
+
+ return true;
+}
+
static bool blk_mq_hctx_has_online_cpu(struct blk_mq_hw_ctx *hctx,
unsigned int this_cpu)
{
@@ -3752,6 +3803,11 @@ static int blk_mq_hctx_notify_offline(unsigned int cpu, struct hlist_node *node)
struct blk_mq_hw_ctx, cpuhp_online);
int ret = 0;

+ if (housekeeping_enabled(HK_TYPE_IO_QUEUE)) {
+ if (!blk_mq_hctx_can_offline_hk_cpu(hctx, cpu))
+ return -EINVAL;
+ }
+
if (!hctx->nr_ctx || blk_mq_hctx_has_online_cpu(hctx, cpu))
return 0;

--
2.51.0