linux-kernel - Re: thousands of kworker processes with 4.7.x and 4.8-rc*

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Date:   Sun, 25 Sep 2016 19:21:12 +0200
From:   Mike Galbraith <umgwanakikbuti@...il.com>
To:     Tomasz Chmielewski <mangoo@...g.org>
Cc:     LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: thousands of kworker processes with 4.7.x and 4.8-rc*

On Sun, 2016-09-25 at 21:40 +0900, Tomasz Chmielewski wrote:

> The problem is the allocator.
> 
> -CONFIG_SLUB=y
> +CONFIG_SLAB=y
> 
> 
> With SLUB, I'm getting a handful of kworker processes, as expected.
> 
> With SLAB, I'm getting thousands of kworker processes.
> 
> 
> Not sure if that's expected behaviour or not.

I seriously doubt 1500+ kworkers piling up is expected.

4.7.0-rc4       47
4.7.0-rc5       1592

Presuming you didn't switch to SLAB and/or change userspace all around
while testing, that would still indicate a kernel regression lurking
between rc4 and rc5.

	-Mike