kswapd0 must die

[quequotion]

I absolutely must kill kswapd.

How can this be achieved?

[CharlesA]

See here:
http://serverfault.com/questions/316...d-to-be-in-use

[quequotion]

See here:
http://serverfault.com/questions/316...d-to-be-in-use

Thank you.

In fact, I've already seen that. There are about a hundred posts in various forums, blogs, and faqs about kswapd and swap usage... none of which solve the essential problem: kswapd must be stopped.
I'd rather not divert from my question but perhaps I must. Like many users, I'm experiencing kswapd0 using 100% of a CPU core. I have 16 gigabytes of RAM, and 16 more gigabytes of swap which never gets used. I have yet to find a way to use all that ram, let alone all that swap.
kswapd being out of control only has the effect of eating up CPU. It doesn't break any other runing processes or cause kernel panics. Obviously, this process is in some kind of race or stuck doing the same thing over and over again, but what ever is going on is totally irrelevant to the system, eg, killing it should have no adverse effects.

How can I kill kswapd?

[CharlesA]

How can I kill kswapd?

kill -9 whateverthepidofkswapd0is

Assuming that doesn't break anything, see if it kswapd is still running, but I would advise you to get to the bottom of why it is constantly swapping instead of just killing it and being done with it.

Considering you gave no additional information in the OP and considering 12.04 is running off the 3.2 kernel, you really need to provide more information.

I checked my 12.04 server, which is running 16GB RAM (and 16GB swap) and kswapd0 is sleeping and using none of the CPU.

[quequotion]

kill -9 whateverthepidofkswapd0is

Assuming that doesn't break anything, see if it kswapd is still running, but I would advise you to get to the bottom of why it is constantly swapping instead of just killing it and being done with it.

Considering you gave no additional information in the OP and considering 12.04 is running off the 3.2 kernel, you really need to provide more information.

I checked my 12.04 server, which is running 16GB RAM (and 16GB swap) and kswapd0 is sleeping and using none of the CPU.

kswapd cannot be killed by kill or killall, even with sudo and even after sudo su to root terminal...

I intentionally gave no further information. I don't want to find out what's going on; I just want to know how to kill it if that is in fact possible.

How can I terminate the kswapd0 process?

[quequotion]

I am still having trouble with kswapd.

I have read a great many anecdotes on this process, it's occasional overzealous CPU usage, and what it may theoretically be doing. The only conclusions I can draw so far are that:
1. Only Linus knows what exactly this process does, and he hasn't commented on it.
2. At some point, the kernel developers chose to make it invulnerable to kill.
3. Whatever it's doing when it goes haywire has no importance to the computer whatsoever.

I know my earlier post might not be the kind of thing people want to hear, but I really don't see the point of beating a dead horse on this one: the only thing that is wrong is that the process is running and I'd like it to stop. How do I make it stop?

[rnerwein]

kswapd cannot be killed by kill or killall, even with sudo and even after sudo su to root terminal...

I intentionally gave no further information. I don't want to find out what's going on; I just want to know how to kill it if that is in fact possible.

How can I terminate the kswapd0 process?

kswapd is a kernel thread. as i know it will never come into user-land and therefore the signal can't be delivered.
cheers