1.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1990, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 6.\" are met: 7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 8.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 10.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 11.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 12.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software 13.\" must display the following acknowledgement: 14.\" This product includes software developed by the University of 15.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. 16.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 17.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 18.\" without specific prior written permission. 19.\" 20.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 21.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 22.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 23.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 24.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 25.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 26.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 27.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 28.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 29.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 30.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 31.\" 32.\" @(#)nice.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93 33.\" $FreeBSD$ 34.\" 35.Dd June 6, 1993 36.Dt NICE 1 37.Os 38.Sh NAME 39.Nm nice 40.Nd execute a utility at an altered scheduling priority 41.Sh SYNOPSIS 42.Nm 43.Op Fl n Ar increment 44.Ar utility 45.Op Ar argument ... 46.Sh DESCRIPTION 47The 48.Nm 49utility runs 50.Ar utility 51at an altered scheduling priority, by incrementing its 52.Dq nice 53value by the specified 54.Ar increment , 55or a default value of 10. 56The lower the nice value of a process, the higher its scheduling priority. 57.Pp 58The superuser may specify a negative increment in order to run a utility 59with a higher scheduling priority. 60.Pp 61Some shells may provide a builtin 62.Nm 63command which is similar or identical to this utility. 64Consult the 65.Xr builtin 1 66manual page. 67.Sh ENVIRONMENT 68The 69.Ev PATH 70environment variable is used to locate the requested 71.Ar utility 72if the name contains no 73.Ql / 74characters. 75.Sh EXAMPLES 76Execute utility 77.Sq date 78at priority 5 assuming the priority of the 79shell is 0: 80.Pp 81.Dl "nice -n 5 date" 82.Pp 83Execute utility 84.Sq date 85at priority -19 assuming the priority of the 86shell is 0 and you are the super-user: 87.Pp 88.Dl "nice -n 16 nice -n -35 date" 89.Sh DIAGNOSTICS 90If 91.Ar utility 92is invoked, the exit status of 93.Nm 94is the exit status of 95.Ar utility . 96.Pp 97An exit status of 126 indicates 98.Ar utility 99was found, but could not be executed. 100An exit status of 127 indicates 101.Ar utility 102could not be found. 103.Sh SEE ALSO 104.Xr builtin 1 , 105.Xr csh 1 , 106.Xr idprio 1 , 107.Xr rtprio 1 , 108.Xr getpriority 2 , 109.Xr setpriority 2 , 110.Xr renice 8 111.Sh COMPATIBILITY 112The traditional 113.Fl Ns Ar increment 114option has been deprecated but is still supported. 115.Sh STANDARDS 116The 117.Nm 118utility conforms to 119.St -p1003.1-2001 . 120.Sh HISTORY 121A 122.Nm 123utility appeared in 124.At v4 . 125