The sysctl of the nmi_watchdog file prevents writes by setting min = max = 0 if none of the users is enabled. That involves ifdeffery and is competely non obvious. If none of the facilities is enabeld, then the file can simply be made read only. Move the ifdeffery into the header and use a constant for file permissions. Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner Cc: Don Zickus Cc: Chris Metcalf Cc: Peter Zijlstra Cc: Sebastian Siewior Cc: Nicholas Piggin Cc: Ulrich Obergfell Cc: Borislav Petkov Cc: Andrew Morton Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/20170831073054.583837707@linutronix.de --- include/linux/nmi.h | 6 ++++++ kernel/sysctl.c | 6 +----- 2 files changed, 7 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-) --- a/include/linux/nmi.h +++ b/include/linux/nmi.h @@ -81,6 +81,12 @@ extern unsigned int hardlockup_panic; static inline void hardlockup_detector_disable(void) {} #endif +#if defined(CONFIG_HAVE_NMI_WATCHDOG) || defined(CONFIG_HARDLOCKUP_DETECTOR) +# define NMI_WATCHDOG_SYSCTL_PERM 0644 +#else +# define NMI_WATCHDOG_SYSCTL_PERM 0444 +#endif + #if defined(CONFIG_HARDLOCKUP_DETECTOR_PERF) extern void arch_touch_nmi_watchdog(void); extern void hardlockup_detector_perf_stop(void); --- a/kernel/sysctl.c +++ b/kernel/sysctl.c @@ -891,14 +891,10 @@ static struct ctl_table kern_table[] = { .procname = "nmi_watchdog", .data = &nmi_watchdog_enabled, .maxlen = sizeof (int), - .mode = 0644, + .mode = NMI_WATCHDOG_SYSCTL_PERM, .proc_handler = proc_nmi_watchdog, .extra1 = &zero, -#if defined(CONFIG_HAVE_NMI_WATCHDOG) || defined(CONFIG_HARDLOCKUP_DETECTOR) .extra2 = &one, -#else - .extra2 = &zero, -#endif }, { .procname = "watchdog_cpumask",