ioprio_get

IOPRIO_SET(2)              Linux Programmer's Manual             IOPRIO_SET(2)

NAME
       ioprio_get, ioprio_set - get/set I/O scheduling class and priority

SYNOPSIS
       int ioprio_get(int which, int who);
       int ioprio_set(int which, int who, int ioprio);

       Note: There are no glibc wrappers for these system calls; see NOTES.

DESCRIPTION
       The  ioprio_get()  and  ioprio_set()  system  calls get and set the I/O
       scheduling class and priority of one or more threads.

       The which and who arguments identify the thread(s) on which the  system
       calls  operate.   The which argument determines how who is interpreted,
       and has one of the following values:

       IOPRIO_WHO_PROCESS
              who is a process ID or thread ID identifying a single process or
              thread.  If who is 0, then operate on the calling thread.

       IOPRIO_WHO_PGRP
              who  is  a  process  group  ID  identifying all the members of a
              process group.  If who is 0, then operate on the  process  group
              of which the caller is a member.

       IOPRIO_WHO_USER
              who  is  a  user ID identifying all of the processes that have a
              matching real UID.

       If which is specified as IOPRIO_WHO_PGRP or IOPRIO_WHO_USER when  call-
       ing  ioprio_get(),  and more than one process matches who, then the re-
       turned priority will be the highest one found among all of the matching
       processes.   One  priority  is said to be higher than another one if it
       belongs to a higher priority class (IOPRIO_CLASS_RT is the highest pri-
       ority  class;  IOPRIO_CLASS_IDLE is the lowest) or if it belongs to the
       same priority class as the other process  but  has  a  higher  priority
       level (a lower priority number means a higher priority level).

       The  ioprio argument given to ioprio_set() is a bit mask that specifies
       both the scheduling class and the priority to be assigned to the target
       process(es).  The following macros are used for assembling and dissect-
       ing ioprio values:

       IOPRIO_PRIO_VALUE(class, data)
              Given a scheduling class and priority (data),  this  macro  com-
              bines  the  two  values to produce an ioprio value, which is re-
              turned as the result of the macro.

       IOPRIO_PRIO_CLASS(mask)
              Given mask (an ioprio value), this macro returns its  I/O  class
              component,  that  is,  one  of  the  values IOPRIO_CLASS_RT, IO-
              PRIO_CLASS_BE, or IOPRIO_CLASS_IDLE.

       IOPRIO_PRIO_DATA(mask)
              Given mask (an ioprio value), this macro  returns  its  priority
              (data) component.

       See  the  NOTES  section for more information on scheduling classes and
       priorities, as well as the meaning of specifying ioprio as 0.

       I/O priorities are supported for reads and for  synchronous  (O_DIRECT,
       O_SYNC)  writes.   I/O  priorities  are  not supported for asynchronous
       writes because they are issued  outside  the  context  of  the  program
       dirtying the memory, and thus program-specific priorities do not apply.

RETURN VALUE
       On  success,  ioprio_get() returns the ioprio value of the process with
       highest I/O priority of any of the processes that  match  the  criteria
       specified in which and who.  On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set
       to indicate the error.

       On success, ioprio_set() returns 0.  On error, -1 is returned, and  er-
       rno is set to indicate the error.

ERRORS
       EINVAL Invalid  value  for which or ioprio.  Refer to the NOTES section
              for available scheduler classes and priority levels for ioprio.

       EPERM  The calling process does not have the privilege needed to assign
              this ioprio to the specified process(es).  See the NOTES section
              for more information on required privileges for ioprio_set().

       ESRCH  No process(es) could be found that matched the specification  in
              which and who.

VERSIONS
       These system calls have been available on Linux since kernel 2.6.13.

CONFORMING TO
       These system calls are Linux-specific.

NOTES
       Glibc  does not provide a wrapper for these system calls; call them us-
       ing syscall(2).

       Two or more processes or threads can share an I/O context.   This  will
       be  the case when clone(2) was called with the CLONE_IO flag.  However,
       by default, the distinct threads of a process will not share  the  same
       I/O context.  This means that if you want to change the I/O priority of
       all threads in a process, you may need to call ioprio_set() on each  of
       the  threads.   The thread ID that you would need for this operation is
       the one that is returned by gettid(2) or clone(2).

       These system calls have an effect only when used in conjunction with an
       I/O  scheduler  that  supports I/O priorities.  As at kernel 2.6.17 the
       only such scheduler is the Completely Fair Queuing (CFQ) I/O scheduler.

       If no I/O scheduler has been set for a thread, then by default the  I/O
       priority  will  follow  the  CPU nice value (setpriority(2)).  In Linux
       kernels before version 2.6.24, once an I/O priority had been set  using
       ioprio_set(),  there was no way to reset the I/O scheduling behavior to
       the default.  Since Linux 2.6.24, specifying ioprio as 0 can be used to
       reset to the default I/O scheduling behavior.

   Selecting an I/O scheduler
       I/O  schedulers are selected on a per-device basis via the special file
       /sys/block/<device>/queue/scheduler.

       One can view the current I/O scheduler via the  /sys  filesystem.   For
       example,  the  following command displays a list of all schedulers cur-
       rently loaded in the kernel:

           $ cat /sys/block/sda/queue/scheduler
           noop anticipatory deadline [cfq]

       The scheduler surrounded by brackets is the one actually in use for the
       device  (sda  in  the  example).   Setting another scheduler is done by
       writing the name of the new scheduler to this file.  For  example,  the
       following command will set the scheduler for the sda device to cfq:

           $ su
           Password:
           # echo cfq > /sys/block/sda/queue/scheduler

   The Completely Fair Queuing (CFQ) I/O scheduler
       Since  version  3  (also  known as CFQ Time Sliced), CFQ implements I/O
       nice levels similar to those of CPU scheduling.  These nice levels  are
       grouped  into three scheduling classes, each one containing one or more
       priority levels:

       IOPRIO_CLASS_RT (1)
              This is the real-time I/O class.  This scheduling class is given
              higher  priority than any other class: processes from this class
              are given first access to the disk every time.  Thus,  this  I/O
              class needs to be used with some care: one I/O real-time process
              can starve the entire system.  Within the real-time class, there
              are 8 levels of class data (priority) that determine exactly how
              much time this process needs the disk for on each service.   The
              highest  real-time priority level is 0; the lowest is 7.  In the
              future, this might change to be more directly mappable  to  per-
              formance, by passing in a desired data rate instead.

       IOPRIO_CLASS_BE (2)
              This  is  the best-effort scheduling class, which is the default
              for any process that hasn't set a specific  I/O  priority.   The
              class  data  (priority)  determines  how  much I/O bandwidth the
              process will get.  Best-effort priority levels are analogous  to
              CPU nice values (see getpriority(2)).  The priority level deter-
              mines a priority relative to other processes in the  best-effort
              scheduling  class.   Priority levels range from 0 (highest) to 7
              (lowest).

       IOPRIO_CLASS_IDLE (3)
              This is the idle scheduling class.  Processes  running  at  this
              level  get  I/O  time only when no one else needs the disk.  The
              idle class has no class data.  Attention is  required  when  as-
              signing  this  priority  class to a process, since it may become
              starved if higher priority processes  are  constantly  accessing
              the disk.

       Refer to the kernel source file Documentation/block/ioprio.txt for more
       information on the CFQ I/O Scheduler and an example program.

   Required permissions to set I/O priorities
       Permission to change a process's priority is granted or denied based on
       two criteria:

       Process ownership
              An  unprivileged  process  may  set  the I/O priority only for a
              process whose real UID matches the real or effective UID of  the
              calling  process.  A process which has the CAP_SYS_NICE capabil-
              ity can change the priority of any process.

       What is the desired priority
              Attempts to set very high priorities  (IOPRIO_CLASS_RT)  require
              the CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability.  Kernel versions up to 2.6.24 also
              required  CAP_SYS_ADMIN  to  set  a  very  low   priority   (IO-
              PRIO_CLASS_IDLE),  but since Linux 2.6.25, this is no longer re-
              quired.

       A call to ioprio_set() must follow both rules, or the  call  will  fail
       with the error EPERM.

BUGS
       Glibc does not yet provide a suitable header file defining the function
       prototypes and macros described on this page.  Suitable definitions can
       be found in linux/ioprio.h.

SEE ALSO
       ionice(1), getpriority(2), open(2), capabilities(7), cgroups(7)

       Documentation/block/ioprio.txt in the Linux kernel source tree

COLOPHON
       This  page  is  part of release 5.05 of the Linux man-pages project.  A
       description of the project, information about reporting bugs,  and  the
       latest     version     of     this    page,    can    be    found    at
       https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

Linux                             2019-03-06                     IOPRIO_SET(2)