nice

What it does

How to write it

nice [-n ADJUSTMENT] [COMMAND [ARGUMENT]...]

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$ run as a normal user# run as root (or with sudo)

1. 1Run a backup with low priority

   $nice -n 19 tar -czf /tmp/home.tgz /home

   Users and services keep their speed.

2. 2Default adjustment

   $nice sleep 100 &
   $ps -o ni,cmd -p $!
    NI CMD
    10 sleep 100

   Without -n: +10.

3. 3Higher priority (root)

   #nice -n -5 /usr/local/bin/important-job

   Only root may use negative values.

4. 4Normal user tries a negative value

   $nice -n -5 sleep 1
   nice: cannot set niceness: Permission denied

   The command still runs, with nice 0.

5. 5Show the current nice value

   $nice
   0

   Without a command: print your niceness.

6. 6Low CPU and low disk priority together

   $nice -n 19 ionice -c3 rsync -a /data/ /backup/data/

   ionice -c3 = only use the disk when nobody else does.

7. 7Compile without slowing the system

   $nice -n 15 make -j"$(nproc)"

   Use all cores, but give way to others.

8. 8Check the NI column in top

   $top

   Column NI shows the nice value; PR the kernel priority.

9. 9Set the nice value of a service

   #systemctl edit myapp

   Add [Service] and Nice=10 — services are not started with nice.

10. 10Run a cron job nicely

    $crontab -l | grep nice
    0 2 * * * nice -n 19 /usr/local/bin/report.sh

    Reports at night with low priority.

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