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sched(7)                Miscellaneous Information Manual               sched(7)

NAME
       sched - overview of CPU scheduling

DESCRIPTION
       Since  Linux  2.6.23, the default scheduler is CFS, the "Completely Fair
       Scheduler".  The CFS scheduler replaced the earlier "O(1)" scheduler.

   API summary
       Linux provides the following system calls for controlling the CPU sched-
       uling behavior, policy, and priority of processes (or,  more  precisely,
       threads).

       nice(2)
              Set  a  new nice value for the calling thread, and return the new
              nice value.

       getpriority(2)
              Return the nice value of a thread, a process group, or the set of
              threads owned by a specified user.

       setpriority(2)
              Set the nice value of a thread, a process group, or  the  set  of
              threads owned by a specified user.

       sched_setscheduler(2)
              Set the scheduling policy and parameters of a specified thread.

       sched_getscheduler(2)
              Return the scheduling policy of a specified thread.

       sched_setparam(2)
              Set the scheduling parameters of a specified thread.

       sched_getparam(2)
              Fetch the scheduling parameters of a specified thread.

       sched_get_priority_max(2)
              Return  the  maximum priority available in a specified scheduling
              policy.

       sched_get_priority_min(2)
              Return the minimum priority available in a  specified  scheduling
              policy.

       sched_rr_get_interval(2)
              Fetch  the  quantum used for threads that are scheduled under the
              "round-robin" scheduling policy.

       sched_yield(2)
              Cause the caller to relinquish the CPU, so that some other thread
              be executed.

       sched_setaffinity(2)
              (Linux-specific) Set the CPU affinity of a specified thread.

       sched_getaffinity(2)
              (Linux-specific) Get the CPU affinity of a specified thread.

       sched_setattr(2)
              Set the scheduling policy and parameters of a  specified  thread.
              This  (Linux-specific)  system  call  provides  a superset of the
              functionality of sched_setscheduler(2) and sched_setparam(2).

       sched_getattr(2)
              Fetch the scheduling policy and parameters of a specified thread.
              This (Linux-specific) system call  provides  a  superset  of  the
              functionality of sched_getscheduler(2) and sched_getparam(2).

   Scheduling policies
       The scheduler is the kernel component that decides which runnable thread
       will  be executed by the CPU next.  Each thread has an associated sched-
       uling policy and a  static  scheduling  priority,  sched_priority.   The
       scheduler  makes its decisions based on knowledge of the scheduling pol-
       icy and static priority of all threads on the system.

       For threads scheduled  under  one  of  the  normal  scheduling  policies
       (SCHED_OTHER,  SCHED_IDLE,  SCHED_BATCH),  sched_priority is not used in
       scheduling decisions (it must be specified as 0).

       Processes scheduled under one of  the  real-time  policies  (SCHED_FIFO,
       SCHED_RR) have a sched_priority value in the range 1 (low) to 99 (high).
       (As  the  numbers  imply,  real-time threads always have higher priority
       than normal threads.)  Note well: POSIX.1 requires an implementation  to
       support  only  a  minimum  32 distinct priority levels for the real-time
       policies, and some systems supply just this minimum.  Portable  programs
       should  use  sched_get_priority_min(2)  and sched_get_priority_max(2) to
       find the range of priorities supported for a particular policy.

       Conceptually, the scheduler maintains a list  of  runnable  threads  for
       each  possible sched_priority value.  In order to determine which thread
       runs next, the scheduler looks for the nonempty list  with  the  highest
       static priority and selects the thread at the head of this list.

       A  thread's  scheduling policy determines where it will be inserted into
       the list of threads with equal static priority and how it will move  in-
       side this list.

       All  scheduling is preemptive: if a thread with a higher static priority
       becomes ready to run, the currently running thread will be preempted and
       returned to the wait list for its static priority level.  The scheduling
       policy determines the ordering only within the list of runnable  threads
       with equal static priority.

   SCHED_FIFO: First in-first out scheduling
       SCHED_FIFO  can be used only with static priorities higher than 0, which
       means that when a SCHED_FIFO thread becomes runnable, it will always im-
       mediately preempt any currently  running  SCHED_OTHER,  SCHED_BATCH,  or
       SCHED_IDLE  thread.  SCHED_FIFO is a simple scheduling algorithm without
       time slicing.  For threads scheduled under the  SCHED_FIFO  policy,  the
       following rules apply:

       •  A running SCHED_FIFO thread that has been preempted by another thread
          of higher priority will stay at the head of the list for its priority
          and  will  resume execution as soon as all threads of higher priority
          are blocked again.

       •  When a blocked SCHED_FIFO thread becomes runnable,  it  will  be  in-
          serted at the end of the list for its priority.

       •  If  a  call  to  sched_setscheduler(2),  sched_setparam(2), sched_se-
          tattr(2),   pthread_setschedparam(3),   or    pthread_setschedprio(3)
          changes  the  priority  of  the running or runnable SCHED_FIFO thread
          identified by pid the effect on the thread's position in the list de-
          pends on the direction of the change to the thread's priority:

          (a)  If the thread's priority is raised, it is placed at the  end  of
               the list for its new priority.  As a consequence, it may preempt
               a currently running thread with the same priority.

          (b)  If  the  thread's priority is unchanged, its position in the run
               list is unchanged.

          (c)  If the thread's priority is lowered, it is placed at  the  front
               of the list for its new priority.

          According to POSIX.1-2008, changes to a thread's priority (or policy)
          using  any mechanism other than pthread_setschedprio(3) should result
          in the thread being placed at the end of the list for its priority.

       •  A thread calling sched_yield(2) will be put at the end of the list.

       No other events will move a thread scheduled under the SCHED_FIFO policy
       in the wait list of runnable threads with equal static priority.

       A SCHED_FIFO thread runs until either it is blocked by an  I/O  request,
       it is preempted by a higher priority thread, or it calls sched_yield(2).

   SCHED_RR: Round-robin scheduling
       SCHED_RR  is  a  simple enhancement of SCHED_FIFO.  Everything described
       above for SCHED_FIFO also applies to SCHED_RR, except that  each  thread
       is allowed to run only for a maximum time quantum.  If a SCHED_RR thread
       has  been  running  for  a  time period equal to or longer than the time
       quantum, it will be put at the end of the  list  for  its  priority.   A
       SCHED_RR  thread that has been preempted by a higher priority thread and
       subsequently resumes execution as a running thread will complete the un-
       expired portion of its round-robin time quantum.  The length of the time
       quantum can be retrieved using sched_rr_get_interval(2).

   SCHED_DEADLINE: Sporadic task model deadline scheduling
       Since  Linux  3.14,  Linux  provides  a   deadline   scheduling   policy
       (SCHED_DEADLINE).   This  policy  is  currently  implemented  using GEDF
       (Global Earliest Deadline First) in conjunction with CBS (Constant Band-
       width Server).  To set and fetch this policy and associated  attributes,
       one  must  use  the Linux-specific sched_setattr(2) and sched_getattr(2)
       system calls.

       A sporadic task is one that has a sequence of jobs, where  each  job  is
       activated  at  most once per period.  Each job also has a relative dead-
       line, before which it should finish execution, and a  computation  time,
       which  is the CPU time necessary for executing the job.  The moment when
       a task wakes up because a new job has to be executed is called  the  ar-
       rival  time (also referred to as the request time or release time).  The
       start time is the time at which a task starts its  execution.   The  ab-
       solute  deadline is thus obtained by adding the relative deadline to the
       arrival time.

       The following diagram clarifies these terms:

           arrival/wakeup                    absolute deadline
                |    start time                    |
                |        |                         |
                v        v                         v
           -----x--------xooooooooooooooooo--------x--------x---
                         |<- comp. time ->|
                |<------- relative deadline ------>|
                |<-------------- period ------------------->|

       When setting a  SCHED_DEADLINE  policy  for  a  thread  using  sched_se-
       tattr(2),  one  can specify three parameters: Runtime, Deadline, and Pe-
       riod.  These parameters do not necessarily correspond to  the  aforemen-
       tioned  terms: usual practice is to set Runtime to something bigger than
       the average computation time (or  worst-case  execution  time  for  hard
       real-time  tasks),  Deadline to the relative deadline, and Period to the
       period of the task.  Thus, for SCHED_DEADLINE scheduling, we have:

           arrival/wakeup                    absolute deadline
                |    start time                    |
                |        |                         |
                v        v                         v
           -----x--------xooooooooooooooooo--------x--------x---
                         |<-- Runtime ------->|
                |<----------- Deadline ----------->|
                |<-------------- Period ------------------->|

       The three deadline-scheduling parameters correspond  to  the  sched_run-
       time,  sched_deadline,  and sched_period fields of the sched_attr struc-
       ture; see sched_setattr(2).  These fields express values in nanoseconds.
       If sched_period is  specified  as  0,  then  it  is  made  the  same  as
       sched_deadline.

       The kernel requires that:

           sched_runtime <= sched_deadline <= sched_period

       In addition, under the current implementation, all of the parameter val-
       ues must be at least 1024 (i.e., just over one microsecond, which is the
       resolution  of the implementation), and less than 2^63.  If any of these
       checks fails, sched_setattr(2) fails with the error EINVAL.

       The CBS guarantees non-interference between tasks, by throttling threads
       that attempt to over-run their specified Runtime.

       To ensure deadline scheduling guarantees, the kernel must prevent situa-
       tions where the set of SCHED_DEADLINE threads is not feasible (schedula-
       ble) within the given constraints.  The kernel thus performs  an  admit-
       tance  test  when  setting or changing SCHED_DEADLINE policy and attrib-
       utes.  This admission test calculates whether the change is feasible; if
       it is not, sched_setattr(2) fails with the error EBUSY.

       For example, it is required (but not necessarily sufficient) for the to-
       tal utilization to be less than or equal to the  total  number  of  CPUs
       available,  where,  since  each thread can maximally run for Runtime per
       Period, that thread's utilization is its Runtime divided by its Period.

       In order to fulfill the guarantees that are made when a thread is admit-
       ted to the SCHED_DEADLINE policy, SCHED_DEADLINE threads are the highest
       priority (user controllable) threads in the system; if  any  SCHED_DEAD-
       LINE  thread is runnable, it will preempt any thread scheduled under one
       of the other policies.

       A call to fork(2) by a thread scheduled under the SCHED_DEADLINE  policy
       fails  with  the  error  EAGAIN, unless the thread has its reset-on-fork
       flag set (see below).

       A SCHED_DEADLINE thread that calls sched_yield(2) will yield the current
       job and wait for a new period to begin.

   SCHED_OTHER: Default Linux time-sharing scheduling
       SCHED_OTHER can be used at only static priority 0 (i.e.,  threads  under
       real-time  policies  always  have  priority over SCHED_OTHER processes).
       SCHED_OTHER is the standard Linux time-sharing  scheduler  that  is  in-
       tended  for all threads that do not require the special real-time mecha-
       nisms.

       The thread to run is chosen from the static priority 0 list based  on  a
       dynamic  priority that is determined only inside this list.  The dynamic
       priority is based on the nice value (see below)  and  is  increased  for
       each  time  quantum the thread is ready to run, but denied to run by the
       scheduler.  This ensures fair progress among all SCHED_OTHER threads.

       In the Linux kernel source code,  the  SCHED_OTHER  policy  is  actually
       named SCHED_NORMAL.

   The nice value
       The  nice  value  is  an attribute that can be used to influence the CPU
       scheduler to favor or disfavor a process in  scheduling  decisions.   It
       affects  the  scheduling  of  SCHED_OTHER  and  SCHED_BATCH  (see below)
       processes.  The nice value can  be  modified  using  nice(2),  setprior-
       ity(2), or sched_setattr(2).

       According  to  POSIX.1,  the nice value is a per-process attribute; that
       is, the threads in a process should share a  nice  value.   However,  on
       Linux,  the  nice  value is a per-thread attribute: different threads in
       the same process may have different nice values.

       The range of the nice value  varies  across  UNIX  systems.   On  modern
       Linux,  the range is -20 (high priority) to +19 (low priority).  On some
       other systems, the range is -20..20.  Very early Linux  kernels  (before
       Linux 2.0) had the range -infinity..15.

       The  degree  to  which the nice value affects the relative scheduling of
       SCHED_OTHER processes likewise varies across  UNIX  systems  and  across
       Linux kernel versions.

       With  the  advent of the CFS scheduler in Linux 2.6.23, Linux adopted an
       algorithm that causes relative differences in nice values to have a much
       stronger effect.  In the current implementation, each unit of difference
       in the nice values of two processes results in a factor of 1.25  in  the
       degree  to which the scheduler favors the higher priority process.  This
       causes very low nice values (+19) to  truly  provide  little  CPU  to  a
       process  whenever there is any other higher priority load on the system,
       and makes high nice values (-20) deliver most of the CPU to applications
       that require it (e.g., some audio applications).

       On Linux, the RLIMIT_NICE resource limit can be used to define  a  limit
       to  which  an unprivileged process's nice value can be raised; see setr-
       limit(2) for details.

       For further details on the nice value, see the subsections on the  auto-
       group feature and group scheduling, below.

   SCHED_BATCH: Scheduling batch processes
       (Since  Linux  2.6.16.)  SCHED_BATCH can be used only at static priority
       0.  This policy is similar to  SCHED_OTHER  in  that  it  schedules  the
       thread according to its dynamic priority (based on the nice value).  The
       difference is that this policy will cause the scheduler to always assume
       that  the thread is CPU-intensive.  Consequently, the scheduler will ap-
       ply a small scheduling penalty with respect to wakeup behavior, so  that
       this thread is mildly disfavored in scheduling decisions.

       This  policy is useful for workloads that are noninteractive, but do not
       want to lower their nice value, and for workloads that want a  determin-
       istic  scheduling policy without interactivity causing extra preemptions
       (between the workload's tasks).

   SCHED_IDLE: Scheduling very low priority jobs
       (Since Linux 2.6.23.)  SCHED_IDLE can be used only at static priority 0;
       the process nice value has no influence for this policy.

       This policy is intended for  running  jobs  at  extremely  low  priority
       (lower  even  than  a +19 nice value with the SCHED_OTHER or SCHED_BATCH
       policies).

   Resetting scheduling policy for child processes
       Each thread has a reset-on-fork scheduling flag.  When this flag is set,
       children created by fork(2) do not inherit privileged  scheduling  poli-
       cies.  The reset-on-fork flag can be set by either:

       •  ORing  the  SCHED_RESET_ON_FORK  flag  into  the policy argument when
          calling sched_setscheduler(2) (since Linux 2.6.32); or

       •  specifying the SCHED_FLAG_RESET_ON_FORK flag in attr.sched_flags when
          calling sched_setattr(2).

       Note that the constants used with these two APIs have  different  names.
       The  state  of the reset-on-fork flag can analogously be retrieved using
       sched_getscheduler(2) and sched_getattr(2).

       The reset-on-fork feature is intended for  media-playback  applications,
       and  can  be  used to prevent applications evading the RLIMIT_RTTIME re-
       source limit (see getrlimit(2)) by creating multiple child processes.

       More precisely, if the reset-on-fork flag is set,  the  following  rules
       apply for subsequently created children:

       •  If  the  calling  thread  has  a  scheduling  policy of SCHED_FIFO or
          SCHED_RR, the policy is reset to SCHED_OTHER in child processes.

       •  If the calling process has a negative nice value, the nice  value  is
          reset to zero in child processes.

       After  the  reset-on-fork flag has been enabled, it can be reset only if
       the thread has the CAP_SYS_NICE capability.  This flag  is  disabled  in
       child processes created by fork(2).

   Privileges and resource limits
       Before  Linux  2.6.12,  only privileged (CAP_SYS_NICE) threads can set a
       nonzero static priority (i.e., set a real-time scheduling policy).   The
       only  change  that  an  unprivileged  thread  can  make  is  to  set the
       SCHED_OTHER policy, and this can be done only if the effective  user  ID
       of the caller matches the real or effective user ID of the target thread
       (i.e., the thread specified by pid) whose policy is being changed.

       A  thread  must be privileged (CAP_SYS_NICE) in order to set or modify a
       SCHED_DEADLINE policy.

       Since Linux 2.6.12, the RLIMIT_RTPRIO resource limit defines  a  ceiling
       on  an  unprivileged  thread's  static  priority  for  the  SCHED_RR and
       SCHED_FIFO policies.  The rules for changing scheduling policy and  pri-
       ority are as follows:

       •  If  an  unprivileged  thread  has a nonzero RLIMIT_RTPRIO soft limit,
          then it can change its scheduling policy and priority, subject to the
          restriction that the priority cannot be set to a  value  higher  than
          the maximum of its current priority and its RLIMIT_RTPRIO soft limit.

       •  If the RLIMIT_RTPRIO soft limit is 0, then the only permitted changes
          are to lower the priority, or to switch to a non-real-time policy.

       •  Subject  to the same rules, another unprivileged thread can also make
          these changes, as long as the effective user ID of the thread  making
          the  change  matches  the  real  or  effective  user ID of the target
          thread.

       •  Special rules apply for the SCHED_IDLE policy.  Before Linux  2.6.39,
          an  unprivileged thread operating under this policy cannot change its
          policy, regardless of the value of its RLIMIT_RTPRIO resource  limit.
          Since  Linux  2.6.39, an unprivileged thread can switch to either the
          SCHED_BATCH or the SCHED_OTHER policy so long as its nice value falls
          within the range permitted by its  RLIMIT_NICE  resource  limit  (see
          getrlimit(2)).

       Privileged  (CAP_SYS_NICE)  threads  ignore  the RLIMIT_RTPRIO limit; as
       with older kernels, they can make arbitrary changes to scheduling policy
       and priority.  See getrlimit(2) for further  information  on  RLIMIT_RT-
       PRIO.

   Limiting the CPU usage of real-time and deadline processes
       A  nonblocking infinite loop in a thread scheduled under the SCHED_FIFO,
       SCHED_RR, or SCHED_DEADLINE  policy  can  potentially  block  all  other
       threads  from  accessing the CPU forever.  Before Linux 2.6.25, the only
       way of preventing a runaway real-time process from freezing  the  system
       was to run (at the console) a shell scheduled under a higher static pri-
       ority  than  the  tested  application.  This allows an emergency kill of
       tested real-time applications that do not  block  or  terminate  as  ex-
       pected.

       Since  Linux 2.6.25, there are other techniques for dealing with runaway
       real-time and deadline processes.  One of these is to use the RLIMIT_RT-
       TIME resource limit to set a ceiling on the CPU time  that  a  real-time
       process may consume.  See getrlimit(2) for details.

       Since Linux 2.6.25, Linux also provides two /proc files that can be used
       to  reserve  a  certain  amount  of CPU time to be used by non-real-time
       processes.  Reserving CPU time in this fashion allows some CPU  time  to
       be  allocated  to  (say) a root shell that can be used to kill a runaway
       process.  Both of these files specify time values in microseconds:

       /proc/sys/kernel/sched_rt_period_us
              This file specifies a scheduling period  that  is  equivalent  to
              100%  CPU  bandwidth.  The value in this file can range from 1 to
              INT_MAX, giving an operating range of 1 microsecond to around  35
              minutes.  The default value in this file is 1,000,000 (1 second).

       /proc/sys/kernel/sched_rt_runtime_us
              The  value  in  this file specifies how much of the "period" time
              can be used by all real-time and deadline scheduled processes  on
              the  system.   The  value  in  this  file  can  range  from -1 to
              INT_MAX-1.  Specifying -1 makes the run time the same as the  pe-
              riod;  that  is,  no  CPU  time  is  set  aside for non-real-time
              processes (which was the behavior before Linux 2.6.25).  The  de-
              fault  value in this file is 950,000 (0.95 seconds), meaning that
              5% of the CPU time is reserved for processes that don't run under
              a real-time or deadline scheduling policy.

   Response time
       A blocked high priority thread waiting for I/O has  a  certain  response
       time before it is scheduled again.  The device driver writer can greatly
       reduce this response time by using a "slow interrupt" interrupt handler.

   Miscellaneous
       Child  processes  inherit  the scheduling policy and parameters across a
       fork(2).  The scheduling policy and parameters are preserved across  ex-
       ecve(2).

       Memory locking is usually needed for real-time processes to avoid paging
       delays; this can be done with mlock(2) or mlockall(2).

   The autogroup feature
       Since  Linux 2.6.38, the kernel provides a feature known as autogrouping
       to improve interactive desktop performance in the face of  multiprocess,
       CPU-intensive  workloads  such  as  building the Linux kernel with large
       numbers of parallel build processes (i.e., the make(1) -j flag).

       This feature operates in conjunction with the CFS scheduler and requires
       a kernel that is configured with CONFIG_SCHED_AUTOGROUP.  On  a  running
       system,  this feature is enabled or disabled via the file /proc/sys/ker-
       nel/sched_autogroup_enabled; a value of 0 disables the feature, while  a
       value  of 1 enables it.  The default value in this file is 1, unless the
       kernel was booted with the noautogroup parameter.

       A new autogroup is created when a new session is created via  setsid(2);
       this happens, for example, when a new terminal window is started.  A new
       process  created  by fork(2) inherits its parent's autogroup membership.
       Thus, all of the processes in a session are members of  the  same  auto-
       group.  An autogroup is automatically destroyed when the last process in
       the group terminates.

       When  autogrouping  is  enabled,  all of the members of an autogroup are
       placed in the same kernel scheduler "task group".  The CFS scheduler em-
       ploys an algorithm that equalizes the distribution of CPU cycles  across
       task  groups.   The benefits of this for interactive desktop performance
       can be described via the following example.

       Suppose that there are two autogroups competing for the same CPU  (i.e.,
       presume  either  a single CPU system or the use of taskset(1) to confine
       all the processes to the same CPU on an SMP system).   The  first  group
       contains  ten  CPU-bound  processes  from  a  kernel  build started with
       make -j10.  The other contains  a  single  CPU-bound  process:  a  video
       player.  The effect of autogrouping is that the two groups will each re-
       ceive  half  of  the CPU cycles.  That is, the video player will receive
       50% of the CPU cycles, rather than just 9% of the  cycles,  which  would
       likely  lead to degraded video playback.  The situation on an SMP system
       is more complex, but the general effect is the same: the scheduler  dis-
       tributes  CPU cycles across task groups such that an autogroup that con-
       tains a large number of CPU-bound processes does not end up hogging  CPU
       cycles at the expense of the other jobs on the system.

       A process's autogroup (task group) membership can be viewed via the file
       /proc/pid/autogroup:

           $ cat /proc/1/autogroup
           /autogroup-1 nice 0

       This  file  can also be used to modify the CPU bandwidth allocated to an
       autogroup.  This is done by writing a number in the "nice" range to  the
       file  to  set the autogroup's nice value.  The allowed range is from +19
       (low priority) to -20 (high priority).  (Writing values outside of  this
       range causes write(2) to fail with the error EINVAL.)

       The  autogroup  nice  setting  has  the same meaning as the process nice
       value, but applies to distribution of CPU cycles to the autogroup  as  a
       whole,  based  on  the  relative nice values of other autogroups.  For a
       process inside an autogroup, the CPU cycles that it receives will  be  a
       product of the autogroup's nice value (compared to other autogroups) and
       the  process's nice value (compared to other processes in the same auto-
       group.

       The use of the cgroups(7) CPU controller to place processes  in  cgroups
       other than the root CPU cgroup overrides the effect of autogrouping.

       The  autogroup  feature  groups only processes scheduled under non-real-
       time policies (SCHED_OTHER, SCHED_BATCH, and SCHED_IDLE).  It  does  not
       group  processes scheduled under real-time and deadline policies.  Those
       processes are scheduled according to the rules described earlier.

   The nice value and group scheduling
       When scheduling non-real-time processes (i.e., those scheduled under the
       SCHED_OTHER, SCHED_BATCH, and SCHED_IDLE policies),  the  CFS  scheduler
       employs  a technique known as "group scheduling", if the kernel was con-
       figured with the CONFIG_FAIR_GROUP_SCHED option (which is typical).

       Under group scheduling, threads are scheduled in  "task  groups".   Task
       groups  have  a hierarchical relationship, rooted under the initial task
       group on the system, known as the "root task group".   Task  groups  are
       formed in the following circumstances:

       •  All  of the threads in a CPU cgroup form a task group.  The parent of
          this task group is the task group of the corresponding parent cgroup.

       •  If autogrouping is enabled, then all of the threads that are (implic-
          itly) placed in an autogroup (i.e., the same session, as  created  by
          setsid(2))  form a task group.  Each new autogroup is thus a separate
          task group.  The root task group is the  parent  of  all  such  auto-
          groups.

       •  If  autogrouping is enabled, then the root task group consists of all
          processes in the root CPU cgroup that were not  otherwise  implicitly
          placed into a new autogroup.

       •  If autogrouping is disabled, then the root task group consists of all
          processes in the root CPU cgroup.

       •  If  group  scheduling  was  disabled (i.e., the kernel was configured
          without CONFIG_FAIR_GROUP_SCHED), then all of the  processes  on  the
          system are notionally placed in a single task group.

       Under group scheduling, a thread's nice value has an effect for schedul-
       ing  decisions  only  relative  to other threads in the same task group.
       This has some surprising consequences in terms of the traditional seman-
       tics of the nice value on UNIX systems.  In particular, if  autogrouping
       is enabled (which is the default in various distributions), then employ-
       ing setpriority(2) or nice(1) on a process has an effect only for sched-
       uling  relative  to  other processes executed in the same session (typi-
       cally: the same terminal window).

       Conversely, for two processes that are (for example) the sole  CPU-bound
       processes  in different sessions (e.g., different terminal windows, each
       of whose jobs are tied to  different  autogroups),  modifying  the  nice
       value  of  the  process in one of the sessions has no effect in terms of
       the scheduler's decisions relative to the process in the other  session.
       A  possibly  useful workaround here is to use a command such as the fol-
       lowing to modify the autogroup nice value for all of the processes in  a
       terminal session:

           $ echo 10 > /proc/self/autogroup

   Real-time features in the mainline Linux kernel
       Since  Linux 2.6.18, Linux is gradually becoming equipped with real-time
       capabilities, most of which are derived from the former realtime-preempt
       patch set.  Until the patches have been completely merged into the main-
       line kernel, they must be installed to achieve the best  real-time  per-
       formance.  These patches are named:

           patch-kernelversion-rtpatchversion

       and   can   be  downloaded  from  ]8;;http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/projects/rt/\http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel
       /projects/rt/]8;;\.

       Without the patches and prior to their full inclusion into the  mainline
       kernel,  the  kernel  configuration  offers  only  the  three preemption
       classes CONFIG_PREEMPT_NONE, CONFIG_PREEMPT_VOLUNTARY,  and  CONFIG_PRE-
       EMPT_DESKTOP  which  respectively provide no, some, and considerable re-
       duction of the worst-case scheduling latency.

       With the patches applied or after their full inclusion into the mainline
       kernel, the  additional  configuration  item  CONFIG_PREEMPT_RT  becomes
       available.   If  this  is  selected, Linux is transformed into a regular
       real-time operating system.  The FIFO and  RR  scheduling  policies  are
       then  used  to  run  a thread with true real-time priority and a minimum
       worst-case scheduling latency.

NOTES
       The cgroups(7) CPU controller can be used to limit the  CPU  consumption
       of groups of processes.

       Originally,  Standard  Linux was intended as a general-purpose operating
       system being able to handle background processes,  interactive  applica-
       tions, and less demanding real-time applications (applications that need
       to  usually  meet timing deadlines).  Although the Linux 2.6 allowed for
       kernel preemption and the newly introduced O(1) scheduler  ensures  that
       the  time  needed to schedule is fixed and deterministic irrespective of
       the number of active tasks, true real-time computing was not possible up
       to Linux 2.6.17.

SEE ALSO
       chcpu(1), chrt(1), lscpu(1), ps(1), taskset(1), top(1), getpriority(2),
       mlock(2), mlockall(2), munlock(2), munlockall(2), nice(2),
       sched_get_priority_max(2), sched_get_priority_min(2),
       sched_getaffinity(2), sched_getparam(2), sched_getscheduler(2),
       sched_rr_get_interval(2), sched_setaffinity(2), sched_setparam(2),
       sched_setscheduler(2), sched_yield(2), setpriority(2),
       pthread_getaffinity_np(3), pthread_getschedparam(3),
       pthread_setaffinity_np(3), sched_getcpu(3), capabilities(7), cpuset(7)

       Programming for the  real  world  -  POSIX.4  by  Bill  O.  Gallmeister,
       O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., ISBN 1-56592-074-0.

       The  Linux  kernel  source  files Documentation/scheduler/sched-deadline
       .txt,     Documentation/scheduler/sched-rt-group.txt,     Documentation/
       scheduler/sched-design-CFS.txt,       and       Documentation/scheduler/
       sched-nice-design.txt

Linux man-pages 6.9.1              2024-05-02                          sched(7)

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