diff --git a/internal/linux/linux.go b/internal/linux/linux.go
index 0fb8cc4c3f1..13713159328 100644
--- a/internal/linux/linux.go
+++ b/internal/linux/linux.go
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@ package linux
 
 import (
 	"os"
+	"unsafe"
 
 	"golang.org/x/sys/unix"
 )
@@ -65,6 +66,22 @@ func Recvfrom(fd int, p []byte, flags int) (n int, from unix.Sockaddr, err error
 	return n, from, err
 }
 
+// SchedSetaffinity wraps sched_setaffinity syscall without unix.CPUSet size limitation.
+func SchedSetaffinity(pid int, buf []byte) error {
+	err := retryOnEINTR(func() error {
+		_, _, errno := unix.Syscall(
+			unix.SYS_SCHED_SETAFFINITY,
+			uintptr(pid),
+			uintptr(len(buf)),
+			uintptr((unsafe.Pointer)(&buf[0])))
+		if errno != 0 {
+			return errno
+		}
+		return nil
+	})
+	return os.NewSyscallError("sched_setaffinity", err)
+}
+
 // Sendmsg wraps [unix.Sendmsg].
 func Sendmsg(fd int, p, oob []byte, to unix.Sockaddr, flags int) error {
 	err := retryOnEINTR(func() error {
diff --git a/libcontainer/process_linux.go b/libcontainer/process_linux.go
index 439c7c7341d..794bf4ec391 100644
--- a/libcontainer/process_linux.go
+++ b/libcontainer/process_linux.go
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 package libcontainer
 
 import (
+	"bytes"
 	"context"
 	"encoding/json"
 	"errors"
@@ -25,6 +26,7 @@ import (
 
 	"github.com/opencontainers/cgroups"
 	"github.com/opencontainers/cgroups/fs2"
+	"github.com/opencontainers/runc/internal/linux"
 	"github.com/opencontainers/runc/libcontainer/configs"
 	"github.com/opencontainers/runc/libcontainer/intelrdt"
 	"github.com/opencontainers/runc/libcontainer/internal/userns"
@@ -178,33 +180,22 @@ type setnsProcess struct {
 
 // tryResetCPUAffinity tries to reset the CPU affinity of the process
 // identified by pid to include all possible CPUs (notwithstanding cgroup
-// cpuset restrictions and isolated CPUs).
+// cpuset restrictions, isolated CPUs and CPU online status).
 func tryResetCPUAffinity(pid int) {
-	// When resetting the CPU affinity, we want to match the configured cgroup
-	// cpuset (or the default set of all CPUs, if no cpuset is configured)
-	// rather than some more restrictive affinity we were spawned in (such as
-	// one that may have been inherited from systemd). The cpuset cgroup used
-	// to reconfigure the cpumask automatically for joining processes, but
-	// kcommit da019032819a ("sched: Enforce user requested affinity") changed
-	// this behaviour in Linux 6.2.
+	// When resetting the CPU affinity, we want to allow all
+	// possible CPUs in the system, including those not in
+	// cpuset.cpus, online or even present (hot-plugged) at call
+	// time. Using a cpumask any tighter this that may disallow
+	// using those CPUs if they are added to cpuset.cpus later.
 	//
-	// Parsing cpuset.cpus.effective is quite inefficient (and looking at
-	// things like /proc/stat would be wrong for most nested containers), but
-	// luckily sched_setaffinity(2) will implicitly:
-	//
-	//  * Clamp the cpumask so that it matches the current number of CPUs on
-	//    the system.
-	//  * Mask out any CPUs that are not a member of the target task's
-	//    configured cgroup cpuset.
-	//
-	// So we can just pass a very large array of set cpumask bits and the
-	// kernel will silently convert that to the correct value very cheaply.
-	var cpuset unix.CPUSet
-	cpuset.Fill() // set all bits
-	if err := unix.SchedSetaffinity(pid, &cpuset); err != nil {
-		logrus.WithError(
-			os.NewSyscallError("sched_setaffinity", err),
-		).Warnf("resetting the CPU affinity of pid %d failed -- the container process may inherit runc's CPU affinity", pid)
+	// Use similar huge buffer as go 1.25 runtime in getCPUCount()
+	// does for mask. This avoids reading and parsing
+	// /sys/devices/system/cpu/possible.
+	const maxCPUs = 64 * 1024
+	buf := bytes.Repeat([]byte{0xff}, maxCPUs/8)
+	if err := linux.SchedSetaffinity(pid, buf); err != nil {
+		logrus.WithError(err).Warnf("resetting the CPU affinity of pid %d failed -- the container process may inherit runc's CPU affinity", pid)
+		return
 	}
 }