nice - invoke a command with an altered scheduling priority
/usr/bin/nice [-increment | -n increment | --adjustment=increment]
command [argument]...
/usr/bin/nice
/usr/xpg4/bin/nice [-increment | -n increment] command
[argument]...
nice [-increment | +increment] [command]
The nice utility invokes command, requesting that it be run with a different system scheduling priority. The priocntl(1) command is a more general interface to scheduler functions.
The invoking process (generally the user's shell) must be in a scheduling class that supports nice.
If the C shell (see csh(1)) is used, the csh built-in version of nice will be invoked unless the full path of the nice utility is specified. See csh Builtin below.
If nice executes commands with arguments, it uses the default shell /usr/bin/sh (see sh(1)).
If nice executes commands with arguments, it uses /usr/xpg4/bin/sh (see ksh88(1)).
nice is also a csh built-in command with behavior different from the utility versions. See csh(1) for description.
With no options, the nice utility reports the nice level of the current process.
The following options are supported:
increment is a positive or negative decimal integer that has the same effect on the execution of the utility as if the utility had called the nice() function with the numeric value of the increment option-argument. See nice(2). nice() errors, other than EINVAL, are ignored. If not specified, an increment of 10 is assumed.
Running commands with priority higher than normal by using a negative increment such as -10 requires the {PRIV_PROC_PRIOCNTL} privilege. A negative increment assigned by an unprivileged user is ignored.
Displays a usage message and exits.
The following operands are supported:
The name of a command that is to be invoked. If command names any of the special built-in utilities (see shell_builtins(1)), the results are undefined.
Any string to be supplied as an argument when invoking command.
See environ(7) for descriptions of the following environment variables that affect the execution of nice: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES, PATH, and NLSPATH.
If command is invoked, the exit status of nice will be the exit status of command. Otherwise, nice will exit with one of the following values:
An error occurred.
command was found but could not be invoked.
command could not be found.
See attributes(7) for descriptions of the following attributes:
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csh(1), ksh88(1), nohup(1), priocntl(1), renice(1), sh(1), shell_builtins(1), nice(2), attributes(7), environ(7), privileges(7), standards(7)
Support for the --adjustment and --help options, as well as for running nice with no options to print the current level, were added to the Solaris nice command in Oracle Solaris 11.4.0.
The –n option and /usr/xpg4/bin/nice command were added to Solaris in Solaris 2.5.
The nice command has been included in all versions of SunOS & Solaris.