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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.

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>