On Mon, Oct 15, 2018 at 04:29:30PM -0400, Waiman Long wrote: > Handling error returned by update_parent_subparts_cpumask() in > update_cpumasks_hier() is problematic as the states may become > inconsistent. To avoid that and increase flexibility in handling other > error cases, a new error state (-1) is added to the partition_root_state > flag. This new error state is set internally and user cannot write this > value to "cpuset.sched.partition". > > In this error state, the partition root becomes an erroneous one. It is > no longer a real partition root, but the CS_CPU_EXCLUSIVE flag will > still be set as it can be changed back to a real one if appropriate > change happens later on. I feel this Changelog should be much more explicit about the reasons this -1 state can happen. As is, I've got no clue.