Chris, I think it would also be nice to check the plausibility of the user input. +int proc_watchdog_cpumask(struct ctl_table *table, int write, + void __user *buffer, size_t *lenp, loff_t *ppos) +{ + int err; + + mutex_lock(&watchdog_proc_mutex); + err = proc_do_large_bitmap(table, write, buffer, lenp, ppos); + if (!err && write) { + /* Remove impossible cpus to keep sysctl output cleaner. */ + cpumask_and(watchdog_cpumask, watchdog_cpumask, + cpu_possible_mask); + + if (watchdog_enabled && watchdog_thresh) + smpboot_update_cpumask_percpu_thread(&watchdog_threads, + watchdog_cpumask); + } + mutex_unlock(&watchdog_proc_mutex); + return err; +} I think the user should only be allowed to specify a mask that is a subset of tick_nohz_full_mask as only those CPUs don't have a watchdog thread by default. In other words, the user should not be able to interfere with housekeeping CPUs. For example, add a plausibility check like so: save watchdog_cpumask because proc_do_large_bitmap() is going to change it proc_do_large_bitmap() // return an error if the user-specified mask includes a housekeeping CPU if (watchdog_cpumask and 'negated tick_nohz_full_mask') { restore saved watchdog_cpumask return -EINVAL } Regards, Uli -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-doc" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html