Re: 8139too: defunct threads

[Andrew Morton <andrewm@uow.edu.au>]

Alan Cox wrote:
> 
> > <slaps head> swapper doesn't know how to reap children, and
> > AFAIK there's no way for a kernel thread to fully clean itself
> > up.  This is always done by the parent.
> 
> Make daemonize() move threads with parent 0 to parent 1

Reparenting would require diving inside this lot:

        /* 
         * pointers to (original) parent process, youngest child, younger sibling,
         * older sibling, respectively.  (p->father can be replaced with 
         * p->p_pptr->pid)
         */
        struct task_struct *p_opptr, *p_pptr, *p_cptr, *p_ysptr, *p_osptr;
        struct list_head thread_group;

plus maybe rewriting pgrps, sessions, gids, etc.  Challenging.

Plus it would mean that the kernel requires, for its
correct operation, that process "1" is a child reaper.
Is this a good thing?