NAME

       and - auto nice daemon

SYNOPSIS

       and [-htvsxf] [-i interval] [-c /path/to/and.conf] [-d /path/to/and.priorities]

VERSION

       This manual page documents and version 1.2.2.

DESCRIPTION

       The auto nice daemon activates itself in certain intervals and renices and even kills jobs
       according to their priority and CPU usage.

       Renice levels and kill signals can be defined in terms of  users,  groups,  and  commands.
       Wildcards  can be specified for any of these. In addition, commands can be specified using
       POSIX regular expressions. To allow for network-wide configuration and priority  files,  a
       mechanism  for hostname-based evaluation is provided, again supporting regular expressions
       for specifying host names.

       Jobs owned by root are left alone. Jobs are never increased in their priority.

       Here are some real-world examples:

       A certain user is notorious for wasting CPU with next-to-irrelevant  jobs.   One  line  is
       sufficient  to renice all of his jobs to about 19.  This is a typical situation for a LART
       (Luser's Attitude Readjustment Tool) like and.

       A CPU server is dedicated to a certain group, but others may also use it when  it's  idle.
       Just  define  default  nice  levels  of  e.g. 18 and a lower nice level for the privileged
       group, say nice level 12.

       A certain web browser who shall remain unnamed tends to go berserk once in  a  while.  You
       can configure and to kill -9 it after e.g. 20 CPU minutes.

COMMAND-LINE OPTIONS

       -c /path/to/and.conf
            Specifies  the  configuration  file.  If  this flag is omitted, /etc/and.conf is used
            instead.

       -d /path/to/and.priorities
            Specifies the priority database file. If this flag is omitted, /etc/and.priorities is
            used instead.

       -h   Produces a short help text.

       -i interval
            Sets  the  interval  between  nice  level  checks.  This  flag overrides the interval
            specified in the configuration file, if any. The default interval of  60  seconds  is
            used if neither -i nor an interval directive in the configuration file is given.

       -s   Log  to  stdout.  Without  this switch, logging goes to syslog (normal operations) or
            ./debug.and (test mode). Useful for debugging config files.

       -t   Run in test mode only, i.e. don't really renice or  kill  anything.   In  this  mode,
            logging goes into ./debug.and instead of syslog.

       -v   Increase verbosity. For maximum verbosity, this flag can be specified multiple times.
            Be warned that this will blow up your log files, so you should use it  in  test  mode
            only.

       -x   Run  in  full  operational  mode,  i.e.  really  renice  or kill things.  This is the
            default.

       -f   Foreground mode. Don't daemonize.

SIGNALS

       On kill -HUP the auto  nice  daemon  will  reload  its  configuration  file  and  priority
       database.

FILES

       /etc/and.conf
            General  configuration  file.  Stores default nice level, default interval, the "time
            zones" and the database lookup affinity.

       /etc/and.priorities
            The  priority  database  (in  plain  text).  Contains  the  (user,  group,   command,
            nicelevels) tuples.

       Both files have their own manual pages.

       ./debug.and
            Contains  logging  and  status information for debugging purposes.  Used in test mode
            only.

SEE ALSO

       and.conf(5), and.priorities(5), kill(1), regex(7), renice(8)

INTERNET

       http://and.sourceforge.net/

AUTHOR

       The  auto  nice  daemon  and  this  manual  page  were   written   by   Patrick   Schemitz
       <schemitz@users.sourceforge.net>