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Subject: Re: [ham] Re: Gracefully killing kswapd, or any kernel thread
From: Kristis Makris <kristis.makris@asu.edu>
To: "linux-os (Dick Johnson)" <linux-os@analogic.com>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.61.0509071554190.4695@chaos.analogic.com>
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	 <Pine.LNX.4.61.0509071554190.4695@chaos.analogic.com>
Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2005 14:07:12 -0700
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> To kill a kernel thread, you need to make __it__ call exit(). It must be

There must be another way to do it. Perhaps one could have another
process effectively issue the contents of do_exit for the kswapd
task_struct ?

> CODED to do that! You can't do it externally although you can send

I'm clearly asking for the case where the thread wasn't coded to do
that.

> it a signal, after which it will spin forever....

kflushd and keventd don't seem to spin forever. I still haven't
determined what makes kswapd spin forever after it receives the signal.