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. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 13.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 14.\" without specific prior written permission. 15.\" 16.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 17.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 18.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 19.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 20.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 21.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 22.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 23.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 24.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 25.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 26.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 27.\" 28.\" @(#)nice.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93 29.\" $FreeBSD$ 30.\" 31.Dd February 24, 2011 32.Dt NICE 1 33.Os 34.Sh NAME 35.Nm nice 36.Nd execute a utility at an altered scheduling priority 37.Sh SYNOPSIS 38.Nm 39.Op Fl n Ar increment 40.Ar utility 41.Op Ar argument ... 42.Sh DESCRIPTION 43The 44.Nm 45utility runs 46.Ar utility 47at an altered scheduling priority, by incrementing its 48.Dq nice 49value by the specified 50.Ar increment , 51or a default value of 10. 52The lower the nice value of a process, the higher its scheduling priority. 53.Pp 54The superuser may specify a negative increment in order to run a utility 55with a higher scheduling priority. 56.Pp 57Some shells may provide a builtin 58.Nm 59command which is similar or identical to this utility. 60Consult the 61.Xr builtin 1 62manual page. 63.Sh ENVIRONMENT 64The 65.Ev PATH 66environment variable is used to locate the requested 67.Ar utility 68if the name contains no 69.Ql / 70characters. 71.Sh EXIT STATUS 72If 73.Ar utility 74is invoked, the exit status of 75.Nm 76is the exit status of 77.Ar utility . 78.Pp 79An exit status of 126 indicates 80.Ar utility 81was found, but could not be executed. 82An exit status of 127 indicates 83.Ar utility 84could not be found. 85.Sh EXAMPLES 86Execute utility 87.Sq date 88at priority 5 assuming the priority of the 89shell is 0: 90.Pp 91.Dl "nice -n 5 date" 92.Pp 93Execute utility 94.Sq date 95at priority -19 assuming the priority of the 96shell is 0 and you are the super-user: 97.Pp 98.Dl "nice -n 16 nice -n -35 date" 99.Sh COMPATIBILITY 100The traditional 101.Fl Ns Ar increment 102option has been deprecated but is still supported. 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 STANDARDS 112The 113.Nm 114utility conforms to 115.St -p1003.1-2001 . 116.Sh HISTORY 117A 118.Nm 119utility appeared in 120.At v4 . 121