The cgroup device whitelist code gets confused when trying to grant
permission to a disk partition that is not currently open. Part of
blkdev_open() includes __blkdev_get() on the whole disk.
Basically, the only ways to reliably allow a cgroup access to a partition
on a block device when using the whitelist are to 1) also give it access
to the whole block device or 2) make sure the partition is already open in
a different context.
The patch avoids the cgroup check for the whole disk case when opening a
partition.