Process Priority

• Processes are scheduled with a 0 (zero) priority by default, unless the process itself is coded to select a higher priority.

• Priority range from -20 (highest) to 19 (lowest)

nice [-n adjustment] command

• allows for fine tuning the priority when starting a process or daemon on the system
• only root can decrease a process priority
• default value of 10 for -n if omitted

renice [-n pri] [-p pids] [-g pgrp] [-u user]

• Allows for altering current process priority

-n pri priority value as above

-p pids alter only listed processes priority, not any child processes

-g pgrp alter the priority of an entire process group