Ubuntu Manpage: /etc/and.priorities - priority database for the auto nice daemon.

NAME

       /etc/and.priorities - priority database for the auto nice daemon.

VERSION

       This manual page documents and.priorities for and version 1.2.2.

DESCRIPTION

This is the priority database file for and. It stores (user, group, command, parent,
nicelevels) tuples (hereafter called entries) to determine the new nice level (or the kill
signal, for that matter) when a job reaches one of the time limits defined in
/etc/and.conf. (See lv1time, lv2time, and lv3time on the and.conf manual page for
details.) See the affinity setting in /etc/and.conf for how ambiguities between the fields
(user, group, command, parent) are dealt with when searching the database to determine the
new nice level for a job. Note that if more than one entry matches with the same accuracy
(e.g. with a parent= entry and an ancestor= entry), the last entry wins!

Comments start with a # in the first column. Empty lines are ignored. Unlike with other
configuration files, lines cannot be concatenated with a backslash. Furthermore, this file
is case sensitive.

and allows for host-specific sections in the configuration file. These work as lines of
the form on somehost and work as follows: the parser determines if the host name (as
returned by gethostname) matches the extended regular expression that follows the on
keyword. If it does, it just keeps processing the file as if nothing had happened. If it
does not match, however, everything up to the next on keyword is skipped. So if you want
to end a host-specific section, you must write on .* (which matches all hosts) to switch
back to normal.

Don't forget to kill -HUP the auto nice daemon to enable the changes.

SETTINGS

A valid entry consists of a line of six columns, separated by one or more spaces. These
columns are: (in that order)

user The user ID the command is running under. May be a user name (which will be looked up
in the password file and, if enabled, via NIS), or a numeric user ID, or an asterisk
for any user.

group
The group ID the command is running under. May be a group name (which will be looked
up in the group file and again, if enabled, via NIS), or a numeric group ID, or an
asterisk for any group.

command
The name of the command, without path. May be a command, a regular expression to
match multiple commands, or an asterisk for any command. Note that "foobar" will not
match "/usr/bin/foobar" - you probably mean ".*foobar" or even ".*foobar.*".

parent
There are two modes of operation for the parent field, determined by a keyword:
parent=foobar will match if a process' direct parent process matches the command or
regular expression after the equal sign, whereas ancestor=foobar will match if any
ancestor process matches. After the keyword and the equal sign goes the name of the
parent process, without path. May be a command, a regular expression to match
multiple commands, or an asterisk for any command. (You can just use the asterisk if
you want to ignore parents for this entry.) Note that again "foobar" will not match
"/usr/bin/foobar", as with command.

nicelevel 1
The nice level after lv1time CPU time was used by the command. Positive numbers and 0
are interpreted as nice levels; negative numbers are interpreted as signals to be
sent to the command. A "nice level" of 19 will almost stop the job, -9 will actually
kill it. (Like in kill -9.) lv1time can be set in /etc/and.conf

nicelevel 2
Same but after lv2time.

nicelevel 3
Same but after lv3time.

EXAMPLES

       Here  are  some  entries from the real world (i.e. from "my" cluster at the Institute). As
       lv[123]time, 5 min., 20  min.,  and  1  hour  is  assumed.  (Which  is  the  default.  See
       /etc/and.conf  for details.) You might also check the default priority database that comes
       with and.

       # A finer default nice level
       * * * * 4 8 12

       # User dau is an idiot, so treat him like accordingly
       dau * * * 19 19 19

       # Netscape sometimes goes berserk, we must stop it
       * * netscape * 4 -9 -9

       # Most hosts are free for everyone but some are
       # especially for the FOO group
       * * * * 4 8 12
       on (bar|baz)
       * * * * 8 12 16
       # ... or, more radical: * * * * -9 -9 -9
       * foo * * 4 8 12
       on .*

       # KDE screen savers...
       * * .*kss * 16 16 16

       # Grid jobs (assuming they are started by a master
       # process)
       * * * ancestor=grid_master 10 10 10
       # Now some clever yet deceitful user might start all
       # his jobs using a shell script named grid_master.
       # He shall regret... whereas the original grid_master
       # (owned by grid) is left alone.
       * * grid_master * -9 -9 -9
       grid * grid_master * 0 0 0

FILES

       /etc/and.priorities
            The  priority  database  (in  plain  text).  Contains  the  (user,  group,   command,
            nicelevels) tuples. This is what this manual page is about.

INTERNET

       http://and.sourceforge.net/

AUTHOR

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