Cross-platform job submission for running jobs with the least impact on other jobs - a single, simpler replacement for both nice and renice (and commands such as npri) on all linux/unix machines without having to learn any options, and it's free. It adjusts the scheduling for new or running processes to the "nicest" possible often by working around "interesting features". i.e. nicer is your best way to use up any CPU time that isn't being used and for best interactive performance. It has support for all major unix platforms. This allows users with a single command to submit batch jobs on any platform. There is no need to set up a queueing system, no learning the often 'intricate' details of a vendors scheduling system, and the variety of built-in and vendor nice/renice syntax. Jobs get submitted (like nice) or rescheduled (like renice) with the same command "nicer" without the need for any flags or job length deadlines. This keeps the user interface constant while getting the highest performance for concurrent interactive and batch jobs for each architecture.
You may not have or want to have a batch queueing system installed on your machines. In this case, you can use nicer as part of a easy to use non-queued batch system with 3 priority levels:
| Priority | Use | without nicer | with nicer 1.3 | with nicer 1.4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | interactive and short jobs | command | command | command |
| 2 | medium term jobs | nice command | nice command | nicer command/PID |
| renice* ** PID | renice* ** PID | |||
| 3 | long jobs | nice*** ** command | nicer command/PID | nicer command/PID |
| renice*** * ** PID | ||||
| npri*** PID |
nicer contains workarounds for bugs in vendors systems which would otherwise prevent "maximum niceness".
nicer cpueater
nicer 7345 7346 7348
USAGE: nicer [-nobellsandwhistles] [-nice|-renice] PIDs|job
-nice,-renice force usage like nice or renice - default is automatic
-nobellsandwhistles turn off any bells and whistles (just use nice values)
-help,--version show this message
EXAMPLES: nicer cpueater
nicer 7345 7346 7348
nicer 012cpueater
nicer -nice 012
DESCRIPTION: give me the process id(s) of your running process(es)
or give me the job you want to run.
I will use the best method for running long jobs on this machine.
see man nice and man renice for more info.
PLATFORMS: Linux 2.x ([10].x)
IRIX64/IRIX 6.[5432] (6.1 6.0x) 5.3 (5.x) 4.0.5H (4.x)
OSF1/DU V4.0 V3.2 (V[4321].x)
Solaris/SunOS 5.5 5.4 (5.[76] 5.5.x 5.x)
ULTRIX 4.4 ([4321].x)
ESV 2.3 ([21].x)
(x)
VERSION: 1.3
AUTHOR: feedback to jrweare@gmail.com http://jrweare.googlepages.com
HOMEPAGE: http://jrweare.googlepages.com/nicer.html
DOWNLOAD: http://jrweare.googlepages.com/nicer.tar
BUGS: use -nice if job name is only numerical
/bin/sh is used to run the job which might not be what you want
any bells and whistles might do bell and whistley type things
# system admin configurable part # allow this to continue (and therefore make a good guess) if the operating system is untested # override untested no-run UNTESTED=y #UNTESTED=n
#!/bin/sh # ULTRIX installations will need the above /bin/sh changed to use a bourne compatible shell that has functions # e.g. /usr/local/bin/bash