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From: pj@giraffe.asd.sgi.com (Paul Jackson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: how do you run your batch jobs?
Message-ID: <5339@odin.SGI.COM>
Date: 16 Mar 90 06:26:26 GMT
References: <54023@bu.edu.bu.edu>
Sender: news@odin.SGI.COM
Reply-To: pj@sgi.com
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Research & Development
Lines: 30

In article <54023@bu.edu.bu.edu>, jdh@bu-pub.bu.edu (Jason Heirtzler) writes:
> 
> At BU we have our jobs on the SGIs split into two categories: long
> running (non-interactive) batch jobs and interactive jobs, typically
> whomever is sitting at the console.
> 
> What we'd like to do is reduce the batch jobs to having the lowest
> impact on the interactive jobs.  It looks like one possible way to
> do this is to start cron with `runon 3 cron' and maybe ...
> 
>         `npri -n 15 -p pid' doesn't seem to have much effect; is
>         this a bug in IRIX 3.2.1?

The npri -n option takes absolute nice values, not relative.  The nice command takes relative.
The absolute nice of a process is visible under the NI column of ps -l.  It is typically
20 for interactive processes.  To slow a process down, try -n 30 or (slowest) -n 39.
The request for -n 15 will actually speed a process up a little bit.

>
> ...
> 
> If you have a system for handling batch jobs that you think is useful,
> I'd be interested in hearing from you.

The next release will support a new option - a port of NQS to IRIX.
This is a more elaborate batch system that is available on several
big-iron number crunchers, such as Cray, Convex, and (soon) SGI.

				Thanks, take care ...
				Paul Jackson (pj@asd.sgi.com), x1373