nice — Run a command with adjusted priority

Linux / Service and process management / nice.html

Starts a command with an adjusted scheduling priority.

Basic Information

What is this command?

nice adjusts the nice value that determines how eagerly a process competes for CPU.

Higher values yield more to other tasks, which suits heavy background jobs.

What problems does it solve?

• Run heavy compression or backup at low priority.
• Keep builds from disturbing interactive work.
• Soften the impact of overnight batch jobs.
• Defer low-urgency work.

Key features

Run with a priority

The -n option sets the nice value for the command.

• When to use: When starting a heavy background job
• What you get: A process running at lower priority
• Limitations: Unprivileged users can only raise the value

Current value

Without a command it prints the current nice value.

• When to use: When checking the inherited priority
• What you get: Current nice value
• Limitations: Other processes need another tool

Adjustment range

Negative values need privileges; 19 is the lowest priority.

• When to use: When reasoning about the priority scale
• What you get: Understanding of the usable range
• Limitations: Smaller values mean higher priority

Installation and usage

Check whether it is installed

nice --version

apt install coreutils # usually already present

Real-world examples

Low priority run

Run compression at low priority.

# Run compression with a low priority
nice -n 15 tar -czf backup.tar.gz /srv/data

Check value

Show the current nice value.

# Print the current nice value
nice

Slightly lower

Lower from the default 0 to 10.

# Increase the nice value by 10
nice -n 10 make -j4