RTPRIO(2)

NAME
rtprio - examine or modify a process realtime or idle priority

SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/rtprio.h>
int
rtprio(int function, pid_t pid, struct rtprio *rtp);

DESCRIPTION
rtprio() is used to lookup or change the realtime or idle priority of a process. function specifies the operation to be performed. RTP_LOOKUP to lookup the current priority, and RTP_SET to set the priority. pid specifies the process to be used, 0 for the current process. *rtp is a pointer to a struct rtprio which is used to specify the priority and priority type. This structure has the following form:

    struct rtprio {
    	u_short	type;
    	u_short prio;
    };

The value of the type field may be RTP_PRIO_REALTIME for realtime priorities, RTP_PRIO_NORMAL for normal priorities, and RTP_PRIO_IDLE for idle priorities. The priority specified by the prio field ranges between 0 and RTP_PRIO_MAX (usually 31). 0 is the highest possible priority. Realtime and idle priority is inherited through fork() and exec(). A realtime process can only be preempted by a process of equal or higher priority, or by an interrupt; idle priority processes will run only when no other real/normal priority process is runnable. Higher real/idle priority processes preempt lower real/idle priority processes. Processes of equal real/idle priority are run round-robin.

RETURN VALUES
rtprio() will return 0 for success and -1 for all errors. The global variable errno will be set to indicate the error.

ERRORS
rtprio() will fail if

[EINVAL]
    The specified prio was out of range.

[EPERM]
    The calling process is not allowed to set the realtime priority. Only root is allowed to change the realtime priority of any process, and non-root may only change the idle priority of the current process.

[ESRCH]
    The specified process was not found.

AUTHOR
The original author was Henrik Vestergaard Draboel - hvd@terry.ping.dk. This implementation in FreeBSD was substantially rewritten by David Greenman.

SEE ALSO
rtprio(1), nice(1), ps(1), setpriority(2), nice(3), renice(8)