Asri-unix.539 net.unix-wizards utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!hpvax!sri-unix!MBM@MIT-XX Sat Jan 16 08:04:06 1982 nice certain programs as a priori entitled to better schdeduling service than others. In particular, we would like to favor screen editors and other human interactive programs at the expense of number crunchers, but the question is general. We have been making such jobs setuid to root and having them minus nice themselves, but this seems messy, dangerous, and a nuisance. Several possibilities are being considered: 1) use setgid instead, and let group 0 (or some group(s)) reduce their nice; this is somewhat less dangerous. 2) use the SVTX bit (sticky text) to also mean for the scheduler to be more generous with jobs using such text (I could never be sure that sticky text helped much anyway) 3) perhaps in conjunction with 2, use the unused word in the a.out header for the base nice priority Yes, I know I could just make a front end for each such program , but that seems just as messy as editing every program to nice itself and then do setuid(getuid). Comments? --mike ------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.