Re: BUG: workqueue lockup - SRCU schedules work on not-online CPUs during size transition

["Paul E. McKenney" <paulmck@kernel.org>]

On Thu, Apr 09, 2026 at 11:10:04AM -0700, Boqun Feng wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 09, 2026 at 07:47:09AM -1000, Tejun Heo wrote:
> > On Thu, Apr 09, 2026 at 10:40:05AM -0700, Boqun Feng wrote:
> > > On Thu, Apr 09, 2026 at 10:26:49AM -0700, Boqun Feng wrote:
> > > > On Thu, Apr 09, 2026 at 03:08:45PM +0200, Vasily Gorbik wrote:
> > > > > Commit 61bbcfb50514 ("srcu: Push srcu_node allocation to GP when
> > > > > non-preemptible") defers srcu_node tree allocation when called under
> > > > > raw spinlock, putting SRCU through ~6 transitional grace periods
> > > > > (SRCU_SIZE_ALLOC to SRCU_SIZE_BIG). During this transition srcu_gp_end()
> > > > > uses mask = ~0, which makes srcu_schedule_cbs_snp() call queue_work_on()
> > > > > for every possible CPU. Since rcu_gp_wq is WQ_PERCPU, work targets
> > > > > per-CPU pools directly - pools for not-online CPUs have no workers,
> > > > 
> > > > [Cc workqueue]
> > > > 
> > > > Hmm.. I thought for offline CPUs the corresponding worker pools become a
> > > > unbound one hence there are still workers?
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > Ah, as Paul replied in another email, the problem was because these CPUs
> > > had never been onlined, so they don't even have unbound workers?
> > 
> > Hahaha, we do initialize worker pool for every possible CPU but the
> > transition to unbound operation happens in the hot unplug callback. We
> 
> ;-) ;-) ;-)
> 
> > probably need to do some of the hot unplug operation during init if the CPU
> 
> Seems that we (mostly Paul) have our own trick to track whether a CPU
> has ever been onlined in RCU, see rcu_cpu_beenfullyonline(). Paul also
> used it in his fix [1]. And I think it won't be that hard to copy it
> into workqueue and let queue_work_on() use it so that if the user queues
> a work on a never-onlined CPU, it can detect it (with a warning?) and do
> something?
> 
> [1]: https://lore.kernel.org/rcu/073abb55-197a-4519-b177-f9f776624fed@paulmck-laptop/

It might be that my patch (or something like it) will be required in
addition to Tejun's fix because the current Tree SRCU code is happy
to schedule a workqueue handler on a CPU that does not even have a bit
set in the cpu_possible_mask.  This could happen on a system with the
first 50 CPUs, as in 0-49, in cpu_possible_mask.  Tree SRCU would then
be quite happy to schedule workqueue handlers on the mythical CPUs 50-63.
Which, now that I think on it, does seem a bit more brave than absolutely
warranted.  ;-)

							Thanx, Paul

> Regards,
> Boqun
> 
> > is possible but not online. That said, what kind of machine is it? Is the
> > firmware just reporting bogus possible mask? How come the CPUs weren't
> > online during boot?
> > 
> > Thanks.
> > 
> > -- 
> > tejun