Re: [PATCH REPOST v3.9-rc1] sched: replace PF_THREAD_BOUND with PF_NO_SETAFFINITY

[Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>]

* Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org> wrote:

> PF_THREAD_BOUND was originally used to mark kernel threads which were
> bound to a specific CPU using kthread_bind() and a task with the flag
> set allows cpus_allowed modifications only to itself.  Workqueue is
> currently abusing it to prevent userland from meddling with
> cpus_allowed of workqueue workers.
> 
> What we need is a flag to prevent userland from messing with
> cpus_allowed of certain kernel tasks.  In kernel, anyone can
> (incorrectly) squash the flag, and, for worker-type usages,
> restricting cpus_allowed modification to the task itself doesn't
> provide meaningful extra proection as other tasks can inject work
> items to the task anyway.
> 
> This patch replaces PF_THREAD_BOUND with PF_NO_SETAFFINITY.
> sched_setaffinity() checks the flag and return -EINVAL if set.
> set_cpus_allowed_ptr() is no longer affected by the flag.
> 
> This will allow simplifying workqueue worker CPU affinity management.

Acked-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@kernel.org>

I suspect you want to carry this in the workqueue tree, to enable those 
extra simplifications?

Thanks,

	Ingo