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AND.PRIORITIES(5)		  File Formats		       AND.PRIORITIES(5)

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, com-
     mand, 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 set-
     ting 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. Un-
     like 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	process-
     ing  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 ex-
	  pression 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.  Posi-
	  tive	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, com-
	  mand, nicelevels) tuples. This is what this manual page is about.

SEE ALSO
     and(8), and.conf(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>

Unix				   27 Mar 2005		       AND.PRIORITIES(5)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=and.priorities&sektion=5&manpath=FreeBSD+Ports+15.1.quarterly>

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