Are processes in square brackets scheduled in the same way as other processes?

ps(1), with the -f option, will output processes for which there is no associated command line in square brackets, like so:

UID        PID  PPID  C STIME TTY          TIME CMD
root         1     0  0 Aug28 ?        00:07:42 /sbin/init
root         2     0  0 Aug28 ?        00:00:01 [kthreadd]
root         3     2  0 Aug28 ?        00:00:00 [rcu_gp]
root         4     2  0 Aug28 ?        00:00:00 [rcu_par_gp]
root         6     2  0 Aug28 ?        00:00:00 [kworker/0:0H-kblockd]
root         8     2  0 Aug28 ?        00:00:00 [mm_percpu_wq]
root         9     2  0 Aug28 ?        00:02:14 [ksoftirqd/0]
root        10     2  0 Aug28 ?        00:05:33 [rcu_preempt]
root        11     2  0 Aug28 ?        00:01:36 [rcuc/0]
root        12     2  0 Aug28 ?        00:00:00 [rcub/0]
root        13     2  0 Aug28 ?        00:00:07 [migration/0]
root        14     2  0 Aug28 ?        00:00:00 [idle_inject/0]
root        16     2  0 Aug28 ?        00:00:00 [cpuhp/0]
root        17     2  0 Aug28 ?        00:00:00 [cpuhp/1]
root        18     2  0 Aug28 ?        00:00:00 [idle_inject/1]
root        19     2  0 Aug28 ?        00:00:05 [migration/1]
root        20     2  0 Aug28 ?        00:00:55 [rcuc/1]

Are these processes scheduled like other processes?

Answers:

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Method 1

Under Linux, ps and top handle information made available by the kernel in /proc, for each process, in a directory named after the pid. This includes two files, comm and cmdline; comm is the process’s command name, and cmdline is the process’s command line, i.e. the arguments it was provided with (including its own “name”). ps and top use square brackets to distinguish between the two: if a process has a command line, then the args field (also known as CMD) outputs that; otherwise it outputs the command name, surrounded with square brackets.

This is described in the ps manpage, for args:

Sometimes the process args will be unavailable; when this happens, ps will instead print the executable name in brackets.

Processes without process arguments include processes constructed without any command line (not even argv[0]), such as kernel threads, and processes which have lost their command line, i.e. defunct processes, also known as zombies (identifiable by the <defunct> suffix).

None of this changes the scheduling properties: all processes are scheduled in the same way, according to their state, priority, etc.

All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0