Re: [PATCH RFC 1/3] cpumask: Honor irq_default_affinity in cpumask_local_spread()

From: sashiko-bot

Date: Thu Aug 20 2026 - 10:31:51 EST


Thank you for your contribution! Sashiko AI review found 2 potential issue(s) to consider:
- [Critical] cpumask_local_spread() can return an invalid CPU index (>= nr_cpu_ids) when offline CPUs are present in irq_default_affinity, leading to out-of-bounds memory accesses in callers.
- [High] Unprotected, non-atomic accesses to irq_default_affinity in cpumask_local_spread() can race with concurrent updates from procfs, causing a division by zero or an out-of-bounds index return.
--

--- Patch [1]: [PATCH RFC 1/3] cpumask: Honor irq_default_affinity in cpumask_local_spread() ---
commit 451b7ef83d22392d8351ba057c391bf3a21095c8
Author: Florian Bezdeka <florian.bezdeka@xxxxxxxxxxx>

cpumask: Honor irq_default_affinity in cpumask_local_spread()

This patch updates cpumask_local_spread() to honor irq_default_affinity
instead of cpu_online_mask. This aims to prevent IRQs from targeting
isolated CPUs for workloads like PREEMPT_RT.

> diff --git a/lib/cpumask.c b/lib/cpumask.c
> index 5adb9874fbd0f..73e7b60a92011 100644
> --- a/lib/cpumask.c
> +++ b/lib/cpumask.c

[ ... ]

> @@ -110,9 +112,9 @@ unsigned int cpumask_local_spread(unsigned int i, int node)
> unsigned int cpu;
>
> /* Wrap: we always want a cpu. */
> - i %= num_online_cpus();
> + i %= cpumask_weight(irq_default_affinity);

[Severity: High]
Is it possible for a concurrent write to irq_default_affinity to cause a
division by zero?

Userland can update the mask via /proc/irq/default_smp_affinity, which
uses a non-atomic cpumask_copy() in default_affinity_write().

If cpumask_local_spread() locklessly computes the weight while bits are
being copied, could it momentarily observe a weight of 0 and trigger a
division by zero panic here?

>
> - cpu = sched_numa_find_nth_cpu(cpu_online_mask, i, node);
> + cpu = sched_numa_find_nth_cpu(irq_default_affinity, i, node);

[Severity: Critical]
Does this code return an invalid CPU index if there are offline CPUs
present in irq_default_affinity?

The modulo above uses cpumask_weight(irq_default_affinity), which
counts all bits in the mask regardless of whether the CPUs are online.

However, sched_numa_find_nth_cpu() only searches within cpu_online_mask:

include/linux/topology.h:sched_numa_find_nth_cpu() {
return cpumask_nth_and(cpu, cpus, cpu_online_mask);
}

If irq_default_affinity contains offline CPUs, the weight can be larger than
the number of online CPUs.

If i ends up larger than or equal to the number of online CPUs in the mask,
won't sched_numa_find_nth_cpu() fail and return an index >= nr_cpu_ids,
causing out-of-bounds memory accesses in callers?

>
> WARN_ON(cpu >= nr_cpu_ids);
> return cpu;

--
Sashiko AI review · https://sashiko.dev/#/patchset/20260819-flo-net-7-2-make-stmmac-default-affinity-aware-v1-0-3f79a99cadaf@xxxxxxxxxxx?part=1