System Administration Guide: Advanced Administration

How to Change the Priority of a Process

You can raise or lower the priority of a command or a process by changing the nice number. To lower the priority of a process:

/usr/bin/nice command-name

Increase the nice number by 4 units (the default).

/usr/bin/nice +4 command-name

Increase the nice number by 4 units.

/usr/bin/nice -10 command-name

Increase the nice number by 10 units.

The first and second commands increase the nice number by 4 units (the default). The third command increases the nice number by 10 units. All three commands lower the priority of the process.

The following commands raise the priority of the command by lowering the nice number.

To raise the priority of a process, do one of the following:

/usr/bin/nice -10 command-name

Raises the priority of the command by lowering the nice number by 10 units.

/usr/bin/nice --10 command-name

Raises the priority of the command by lowering the nice number by 10 units. The first minus sign is the option sign. The second minus sign indicates a negative number.