---
name: "renice"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "util-linux"
version: "2.42.4-1"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/renice"
---

# renice(1)

alter priority of running processes

## NAME

renice - alter priority of running processes

## SYNOPSIS

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

## 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

- **-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

*/etc/passwd*

to map user names to user IDs

## 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)](/getrlimit/2.md)).

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

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

## 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

[**nice**(1)](/nice/1.md), [**chrt**(1)](/chrt/1.md), [**getpriority**(2)](/getpriority/2.md), [**setpriority**(2)](/setpriority/2.md), [**credentials**(7)](/credentials/7.md), [**sched**(7)](/sched/7.md)

## REPORTING BUGS

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

## 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/\>.