Hands-on Lab·Red Hat Certified System Administrator
Process Priority with nice and renice
A one-line objective with one genuinely non-obvious rule: a normal user can make their own process nicer but cannot make it greedier again, not even back to where it started. Both directions are attempted here and the permission error is real.
Operating Running Systems Guide 26 of 67 Intermediate
- OSRHEL 10.0 (Coughlan)
- Kernel6.12.0-55.9.1.el10_0
- dnf4.20.0
- Flatpak1.16.0
- TimeAbout 11 min
- Reviewed23 August 2026
Written against the versions above. Nice values run from **-20** (most favourable) to **19** (least). The `PRI` column that `ps` shows is derived from it and moves the opposite way, which is why raising `NI` lowers `PRI`. Only `NI` is settable.
| Server Name | IP Address | OS | Roles | CPU | RAM | HDD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RHCSA-A01 | 192.168.0.31 | RHEL 10.0 (Coughlan) | Practice node (graded) - spare /dev/sda | 2 Core | 4 GB | 50 GB + 15 GB |
Before you start
- A sudo-capable account.
- The session reuses the CPU-burning process from guide 25 and cleans it up.
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Where a process starts
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Which way an unprivileged user may move it
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Setting it at launch