> I finally had a bit of time to try out different kernel versions to find
> out where this began... and it's in 2.6.24-git2.
>
> What happens: Oracle 11g starts up and forks a number of so
> called background processes. Starting in 2.6.24-git2 the VKTM
> process never fully completes its initialization but gets in R state,
> never accumulating CPU, and can't be straced/gdb'd/killed.
>
> Sysrq-T reports for VKTM looks like this
>
> Feb 9 16:10:46 sandman kernel: =======================
> Feb 9 16:10:46 sandman kernel: oracle R running 2684 2258 1
> Feb 9 16:10:46 sandman kernel: f591dfb0 00200086 f6bbc3c4
> f6863cc0 c010547a 00000000 b794f62c b7b70600
> Feb 9 16:10:46 sandman kernel: b79453dc f591d000 c0103caa
> b794f62c b7943708 b79453e4 b7b70600 b79453dc
> Feb 9 16:10:46 sandman kernel: bfb0dd5c b79500b0 0000007b
> 0000007b c0320000 ffffffff 0e072d7a 00000073
> Feb 9 16:10:46 sandman kernel: Call Trace:
> Feb 9 16:10:46 sandman kernel: [<c010547a>] ? do_IRQ+0xac/0xc1
> Feb 9 16:10:46 sandman kernel: [<c0103caa>] work_resched+0x5/0x16
> Feb 9 16:10:46 sandman kernel: [<c0320000>] ? pci_setup+0xb3/0x104
> Feb 9 16:10:46 sandman kernel: =======================
>
>
> 2.6.24-git1 is okay
> 2.6.24-git2 is bad
> ...
> 2.6.24-git20 is bad
>
> Only differences in kernel .config between -git1 and -git2 are
>
> [asuardi@sandman src]$ diff .config-2.6.24-git[12]
> 3,4c3,4
> < # Linux kernel version: 2.6.24-git1
> < # Sat Jan 26 01:04:43 2008
> ---
> > # Linux kernel version: 2.6.24-git2
> > # Sat Jan 26 12:10:15 2008
> 121a122,123
> > CONFIG_CLASSIC_RCU=y
> > # CONFIG_PREEMPT_RCU is not set
> 187a190
> > # CONFIG_RCU_TRACE is not set
> 230a234
> > # CONFIG_SCHED_HRTICK is not set
> 755a760
> > # CONFIG_PATA_NINJA32 is not set
> 1807a1813
> > # CONFIG_LATENCYTOP is not set
>
> Symptom is similar to what Rafael reported here
>
>
http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0801.3/4114.html
>
> and similarly VKTM attempts to run at elevated priority as normal
> user process (Oracle kernel binary is not setuid root).
>
>
> Peter Zijlstra's patches mentioned in the above thread, at
>
>
http://programming.kicks-ass.net/kernel-patches/sched-rt-group ,
>
> do not appear to be in -git20 yet.
>
>
> I'm available for further testing. Thanks, ciao,