Re: [PATCH v2] sched/core: Use empty mask to reset cpumasks in sched_setaffinity()

[Peter Zijlstra]

On Mon, Jul 17, 2023 at 02:02:43PM -0400, Waiman Long wrote:
> Since commit 8f9ea86fdf99 ("sched: Always preserve the user requested
> cpumask"), user provided CPU affinity via sched_setaffinity(2) is
> perserved even if the task is being moved to a different cpuset. However,
> that affinity is also being inherited by any subsequently created child
> processes which may not want or be aware of that affinity.
> 
> One way to solve this problem is to provide a way to back off from
> that user provided CPU affinity.  This patch implements such a scheme
> by using an empty cpumask to signal a reset of the cpumasks to the
> default as allowed by the current cpuset.
> 
> Before this patch, passing in an empty cpumask to sched_setaffinity(2)
> will always return an EINVAL error. With this patch, an error will no
> longer be returned if sched_setaffinity(2) has been called before to
> set up user_cpus_ptr. Instead, the user_cpus_ptr that stores the user
> provided affinity will be cleared and the task's CPU affinity will be
> reset to that of the current cpuset. No error will be returned in this
> case to signal that a reset has happened.
> 
> If sched_setaffinity(2) has not been called previously, an EINVAL error
> will be returned with an empty cpumask just like before. As a result,
> tests or tools that rely on this behavior will not be affected unless
> they have somehow called sched_setaffinity(2) before.
> 
> We will have to update the sched_setaffinity(2) manpage to document
> this possible side effect of passing in an empty cpumask.

So a normal task, that hasn't had it's affinity changed will have
possible_mask.

So why not use in_mask == possible_mask to clear the user state?