linux-kernel - [PATCH AUTOSEL 6.6 08/12] cpumask: limit FORCE_NR

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Message-ID: <20240701001342.2920907-8-sashal@kernel.org>
Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2024 20:13:27 -0400
From: Sasha Levin <sashal@...nel.org>
To: linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	stable@...r.kernel.org
Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>,
	Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@...nel.org>,
	Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@....com>,
	Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@...icios.com>,
	Paul McKenney <paulmck@...nel.org>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
	Yury Norov <yury.norov@...il.com>,
	Sasha Levin <sashal@...nel.org>
Subject: [PATCH AUTOSEL 6.6 08/12] cpumask: limit FORCE_NR_CPUS to just the UP case

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>

[ Upstream commit 5d272dd1b3430bb31fa30042490fa081512424e4 ]

Hardcoding the number of CPUs at compile time does improve code
generation, but if you get it wrong the result will be confusion.

We already limited this earlier to only "experts" (see commit
fe5759d5bfda "cpumask: limit visibility of FORCE_NR_CPUS"), but with
distro kernel configs often having EXPERT enabled, that turns out to not
be much of a limit.

To quote the philosophers at Disney: "Everyone can be an expert. And
when everyone's an expert, no one will be".

There's a runtime warning if you then set nr_cpus to anything but the
forced number, but apparently that can be ignored too [1] and by then
it's pretty much too late anyway.

If we had some real way to limit this to "embedded only", maybe it would
be worth it, but let's see if anybody even notices that the option is
gone.  We need to simplify kernel configuration anyway.

Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20240618105036.208a8860@rorschach.local.home/ [1]
Reported-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>
Cc: Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@...nel.org>
Cc: Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@....com>
Cc: Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@...icios.com>
Cc: Paul McKenney <paulmck@...nel.org>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>
Cc: Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>
Cc: Yury Norov <yury.norov@...il.com>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin <sashal@...nel.org>
---
 lib/Kconfig | 8 +-------
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 7 deletions(-)

diff --git a/lib/Kconfig b/lib/Kconfig
index c686f4adc1246..ee365b7402f19 100644
--- a/lib/Kconfig
+++ b/lib/Kconfig
@@ -539,13 +539,7 @@ config CPUMASK_OFFSTACK
 	  stack overflow.
 
 config FORCE_NR_CPUS
-       bool "Set number of CPUs at compile time"
-       depends on SMP && EXPERT && !COMPILE_TEST
-       help
-         Say Yes if you have NR_CPUS set to an actual number of possible
-         CPUs in your system, not to a default value. This forces the core
-         code to rely on compile-time value and optimize kernel routines
-         better.
+	def_bool !SMP
 
 config CPU_RMAP
 	bool
-- 
2.43.0