From: Michael Kelley <mhklinux@xxxxxxxxxxx> Code specific to Hyper-V guests currently assumes the cpu_possible_mask is "dense" -- i.e., all bit positions 0 thru (nr_cpu_ids - 1) are set, with no "holes". Therefore, num_possible_cpus() is assumed to be equal to nr_cpu_ids. Per a separate discussion[1], this assumption is not valid in the general case. For example, the function setup_nr_cpu_ids() in kernel/smp.c is coded to assume cpu_possible_mask may be sparse, and other patches have been made in the past to correctly handle the sparseness. See bc75e99983df1efd ("rcu: Correctly handle sparse possible cpu") as noted by Mark Rutland. The general case notwithstanding, the configurations that Hyper-V provides to guest VMs on x86 and ARM64 hardware, in combination with the algorithms currently used by architecture specific code to assign Linux CPU numbers, *does* always produce a dense cpu_possible_mask. So the invalid assumption is not currently causing failures. But in the interest of correctness, and robustness against future changes in the code that populates cpu_possible_mask, update the Hyper-V code to no longer assume denseness. The typical code pattern with the invalid assumption is as follows: array = kcalloc(num_possible_cpus(), sizeof(<some struct>), GFP_KERNEL); .... index into "array" with smp_processor_id() In such as case, the array might be indexed by a value beyond the size of the array. The correct approach is to allocate the array with size "nr_cpu_ids". While this will probably leave unused any array entries corresponding to holes in cpu_possible_mask, the holes are assumed to be minimal and hence the amount of memory wasted by unused entries is minimal. Removing the assumption in Hyper-V code is done in several patches because they touch different kernel subsystems: Patch 1: Hyper-V x86 initialization of hv_vp_assist_page (there's no hv_vp_assist_page on ARM64) Patch 2: Hyper-V common init of hv_vp_index Patch 3: Hyper-V IOMMU driver Patch 4: storvsc driver Patch 5: netvsc driver I tested the changes by hacking the construction of cpu_possible_mask to include a hole on x86. With a configuration set to demonstrate the problem, a Hyper-V guest kernel eventually crashes due to memory corruption. After the patches in this series, the crash does not occur. [1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/SN6PR02MB4157210CC36B2593F8572E5ED4692@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/ Michael Kelley (5): x86/hyperv: Don't assume cpu_possible_mask is dense Drivers: hv: Don't assume cpu_possible_mask is dense iommu/hyper-v: Don't assume cpu_possible_mask is dense scsi: storvsc: Don't assume cpu_possible_mask is dense hv_netvsc: Don't assume cpu_possible_mask is dense arch/x86/hyperv/hv_init.c | 2 +- drivers/hv/hv_common.c | 4 ++-- drivers/iommu/hyperv-iommu.c | 4 ++-- drivers/net/hyperv/netvsc_drv.c | 2 +- drivers/scsi/storvsc_drv.c | 13 ++++++------- 5 files changed, 12 insertions(+), 13 deletions(-) -- 2.25.1