RENICE(1) User Commands RENICE(1)

# [NAME](#NAME)

renice - alter priority of running processes

# [SYNOPSIS](#SYNOPSIS)

**renice** \[**-n**|**--priority**|**--relative**] *priority* \[**-g**|**-p**|**-u**] *identifier*...

# [DESCRIPTION](#DESCRIPTION)

**renice** alters the scheduling priority of one or more running processes. The first argument is the *priority* value to be used. The other arguments are interpreted as process IDs (by default), process group IDs, user IDs, or user names. **renice**'ing a process group causes all processes in the process group to have their scheduling priority altered. **renice**'ing a user causes all processes owned by the user to have their scheduling priority altered.

By default, *priority* is understood as an absolute value. But when option **--relative** is given, or when option **-n** is given and the environment variable POSIXLY\_CORRECT is set, then *priority* is understood as a relative value.

# [OPTIONS](#OPTIONS)

**-n** *priority*|*delta*

Specify the absolute scheduling priority (when POSIXLY\_CORRECT is not set) or a relative priority (when POSIXLY\_CORRECT **is** set). See **NOTES** below for more details. Using option **-n** is optional, but when used, it must be the first argument.

**--priority** *priority*

Specify the absolute scheduling *priority* to be used. This is the default, when no option is specified.

**--relative** *delta*

Specify a relative priority. The actual scheduling priority gets incremented/decremented by the given *delta*. (This is the same as the **-n** option when POSIXLY\_CORRECT is set.)

**-g**, **--pgrp**

Interpret the succeeding arguments as process group IDs.

**-p**, **--pid**

Interpret the succeeding arguments as process IDs (the default).

**-u**, **--user**

Interpret the succeeding arguments as usernames or UIDs.

**-h**, **--help**

Display help text and exit.

**-V**, **--version**

Display version and exit.

# [FILES](#FILES)

*/etc/passwd*

to map user names to user IDs

# [NOTES](#NOTES)

Users other than the superuser may alter the priority only of processes they own. Furthermore, an unprivileged user can only *increase* the "nice value" (that is: lower the urgency), and such changes are irreversible unless (since Linux 2.6.12) the user has a suitable "nice" resource limit (see [**getrlimit**(2)](/man/os/util-linux/getrlimit.2)).

The superuser may alter the priority of any process and set the priority to any value in the range -20 to 19. Useful priorities are: 19 (the affected processes will run only when nothing else in the system wants to), 0 (the "base" scheduling priority), anything negative (to make things go very fast).

For historical reasons, the **-n** option in this implementation does not follow the POSIX specification: instead of setting a **relative** priority, it sets an **absolute** priority by default. As this may not be desirable, this behavior can be changed by setting the environment variable POSIXLY\_CORRECT, to be fully POSIX compliant. See **--relative** and **--priority** for options that do not change behavior depending on environment variables.

# [HISTORY](#HISTORY)

The **renice** command appeared in 4.0BSD.

# [EXAMPLE](#EXAMPLE)

The following command changes the priority of the processes with PIDs 987 and 32, plus all processes owned by the users daemon and root:

**renice +1 987 -u daemon root -p 32**

# [SEE ALSO](#SEE_ALSO)

[**nice**(1)](/man/os/util-linux/nice.1), [**chrt**(1)](/man/os/util-linux/chrt.1), [**getpriority**(2)](/man/os/util-linux/getpriority.2), [**setpriority**(2)](/man/os/util-linux/setpriority.2), [**credentials**(7)](/man/os/util-linux/credentials.7), [**sched**(7)](/man/os/util-linux/sched.7)

# [REPORTING BUGS](#REPORTING_BUGS)

For bug reports, use the *issue tracker* <https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/issues>.

# [AVAILABILITY](#AVAILABILITY)

The **renice** command is part of the util-linux package which can be downloaded from *Linux Kernel Archive* <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>.

2026-10-30 util-linux 2.42.4

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Document: renice(1) from util-linux 2.42.4-r2 (Chainguard OS)