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What is kworker?

Asked by klausner

I've started noticing something called "kworker" listed recently when I run top. There is no man page for it, and there seems to be no documentation at all. Searching Google didn't help.

Even odder, it regularly makes the top ten resources consumer in top, but it doesn't seem to be using any resources:

ps for it looks like: 26 root 20 0 0 0 0 R 0 0.0 7:08.58 kworker/1:1

What's it for, what does it do, and is there any documentation?

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Theodotos Andreou (theodotos) said : 		#1

Can you give us the output of these commands:

  ps auxw | grep kworker
  lsof | grep kworker

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klausner (klausner) said : 		#2

The ps output was pretty much like I showed in the original post. Here is the full output:

$ ps auxw | grep kworker
root 10 0.1 0.0 0 0 ? R Dec21 1:31 [kworker/0:1]
root 1176 0.1 0.0 0 0 ? S Dec21 1:23 [kworker/1:2]
root 24946 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 10:40 0:00 [kworker/u:1]
root 24957 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 11:03 0:00 [kworker/u:0]
root 24962 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 11:07 0:00 [kworker/0:2]
root 26249 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 11:09 0:00 [kworker/u:2]
klausner 26381 0.0 0.0 7676 828 pts/0 S+ 11:14 0:00 grep kworker
root 29962 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S 03:38 0:00 [kworker/1:0]

lsof required sudo to get the full info:

$ sudo lsof | grep kworker
lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon file system /home/klausner/.gvfs
      Output information may be incomplete.
kworker/0 10 root cwd DIR 8,5 4096 2 /
kworker/0 10 root rtd DIR 8,5 4096 2 /
kworker/0 10 root txt unknown /proc/10/exe
kworker/1 1176 root cwd DIR 8,5 4096 2 /
kworker/1 1176 root rtd DIR 8,5 4096 2 /
kworker/1 1176 root txt unknown /proc/1176/exe
kworker/u 24946 root cwd DIR 8,5 4096 2 /
kworker/u 24946 root rtd DIR 8,5 4096 2 /
kworker/u 24946 root txt unknown /proc/24946/exe
kworker/u 24957 root cwd DIR 8,5 4096 2 /
kworker/u 24957 root rtd DIR 8,5 4096 2 /
kworker/u 24957 root txt unknown /proc/24957/exe
kworker/0 24962 root cwd DIR 8,5 4096 2 /
kworker/0 24962 root rtd DIR 8,5 4096 2 /
kworker/0 24962 root txt unknown /proc/24962/exe
kworker/u 26249 root cwd DIR 8,5 4096 2 /
kworker/u 26249 root rtd DIR 8,5 4096 2 /
kworker/u 26249 root txt unknown /proc/26249/exe
kworker/1 29962 root cwd DIR 8,5 4096 2 /
kworker/1 29962 root rtd DIR 8,5 4096 2 /
kworker/1 29962 root txt unknown /proc/29962/exe

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Launchpad Janitor (janitor) said : 		#3

This question was expired because it remained in the 'Open' state without activity for the last 15 days.

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klausner (klausner) said : 		#4

Problem still exists. Seems to be worse in later kernels.

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Peter M. Clausen (pclausen) said : 		#5

affecting me too - and I find no info about this process other than on RedHat: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=638912 ...

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Launchpad Janitor (janitor) said : 		#6

This question was expired because it remained in the 'Open' state without activity for the last 15 days.