2024-04-29 15:33:07

by Linus Torvalds

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH] bounds: Use the right number of bits for power-of-two CONFIG_NR_CPUS

On Mon, 29 Apr 2024 at 07:48, Matthew Wilcox (Oracle)
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
> bits_per() rounds up to the next power of two when passed a power of
> two. This causes crashes on some machines and configurations.

Bah. Your patch is *still* wrong, because bits_per() thinks you need
one bit for a zero value, so when you do

bits_per(CONFIG_NR_CPUS - 1)

and some insane person has enabled SMP and managed to set
CONFIG_NR_CPUS to 1, the math is *still* broken.

The right thing to do is

order_base_2(CONFIG_NR_CPUS)

and 'bits_per()' should be avoided, having completely crazy semantics
(you can tell how almost all users actually do "x-1" as the argument).

We should probably get rid of that horrid bits_per(() entirely.

I applied your patch with that fixed (which admittedly make it all
*my* patch, but applying it as yours just to get the changelog).

Linus