Does kernel threads get scheduled by the scheduller?

Question

How kernel threads gets executed on the CPU does these kernel threads get scheduled by the scheduller , like normal user space processes? or they get waken up when some events happen ?

root         2     0  0 Nov30 ?        00:00:00 [kthreadd]
root         3     2  0 Nov30 ?        00:00:03 [ksoftirqd/0]

this should answer most of your questions: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8463741/how-linux-handles-threads-and-process-scheduling — askb, Dec 03 '14 at 05:12

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 03 '14 at 07:55

2

The answer to both questions is yes - kernel threads gets scheduled just like user threads and they are normally blocking pending certain events (different events per kernel thread).

answered Dec 03 '14 at 07:55

gby

14,900
40
57

Oky right , But why they are represented as processes? – user3718463 Dec 03 '14 at 16:38
@user3718463 What makes you think they are? – David Schwartz Dec 08 '14 at 21:07
@user3718463 they are not represented as processes. They are processes. Or to be more accurate, they are just a bunch of schedulable tasks (a.k.a threads) which happens to not have a user space portion. – gby Dec 09 '14 at 03:10

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 08 '14 at 21:02

0

Answer is Yes.

Only major difference between kernel threads and user space process would be task->mm = NULL for kernel threads.

Hence they don't have distinct address space. Rest is pretty much same for kernel threads and user space processes.

answered Dec 08 '14 at 21:02

tekkk

324
2
8

Does kernel threads get scheduled by the scheduller?

2 Answers2