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 respectively 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 calling
ioprio_get(), and more than one process matches
who, then the returned 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 priority 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
dissecting
ioprio values:
- IOPRIO_PRIO_VALUE(class,
data)
- Given a scheduling class and priority (data),
this macro combines the two values to produce an ioprio value,
which is returned 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, IOPRIO_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.
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
errno 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.
These system calls are Linux-specific.
NOTES¶
Glibc does not provide a wrapper for these system calls; call them using
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 only have an effect 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.
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 file system. For
example, the following command displays a list of all schedulers currently
loaded in the kernel:
$ cat /sys/block/hda/queue/scheduler
noop anticipatory deadline [cfq]
The scheduler surrounded by brackets is the one actually in use for the device
(
hda 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
hda device to
cfq:
$ su
Password:
# echo cfq > /sys/block/hda/queue/scheduler
The Completely Fair Queuing (CFQ) I/O Scheduler¶
Since v3 (aka CFQ Time Sliced) CFQ implements I/O nice levels similar to those
of CPU scheduling. These nice levels are grouped in 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 performance, 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 determines 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 only get I/O time when no-one else needs the disk. The idle
class has no class data. Attention is required when assigning this
priority class to a process, since it may become starved if higher
priority processes are constantly accessing the disk.
Refer to
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
assertions:
- Process ownership
- An unprivileged process may only set the I/O priority of a
process whose real UID matches the real or effective UID of the calling
process. A process which has the CAP_SYS_NICE capability 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 (IOPRIO_CLASS_IDLE), but since Linux 2.6.25, this
is no longer required.
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¶
getpriority(2),
open(2),
capabilities(7)
Documentation/block/ioprio.txt in the Linux kernel source tree
COLOPHON¶
This page is part of release 3.44 of the Linux
man-pages project. A
description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found
at
http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.