SCHED_SETATTR(2) Linux Programmer's Manual SCHED_SETATTR(2)
NAME
sched_setattr, sched_getattr - set and get scheduling policy and at-
tributes
SYNOPSIS
#include <sched.h>
int sched_setattr(pid_t pid, struct sched_attr *attr,
unsigned int flags);
int sched_getattr(pid_t pid, struct sched_attr *attr,
unsigned int size, unsigned int flags);
DESCRIPTION
sched_setattr()
The sched_setattr() system call sets the scheduling policy and associ-
ated attributes for the thread whose ID is specified in pid. If pid
equals zero, the scheduling policy and attributes of the calling thread
will be set.
Currently, Linux supports the following "normal" (i.e., non-real-time)
scheduling policies as values that may be specified in policy:
SCHED_OTHER the standard round-robin time-sharing policy;
SCHED_BATCH for "batch" style execution of processes; and
SCHED_IDLE for running very low priority background jobs.
Various "real-time" policies are also supported, for special time-crit-
ical applications that need precise control over the way in which
runnable threads are selected for execution. For the rules governing
when a process may use these policies, see sched(7). The real-time
policies that may be specified in policy are:
SCHED_FIFO a first-in, first-out policy; and
SCHED_RR a round-robin policy.
Linux also provides the following policy:
SCHED_DEADLINE
a deadline scheduling policy; see sched(7) for details.
The attr argument is a pointer to a structure that defines the new
scheduling policy and attributes for the specified thread. This struc-
ture has the following form:
struct sched_attr {
u32 size; /* Size of this structure */
u32 sched_policy; /* Policy (SCHED_*) */
u64 sched_flags; /* Flags */
s32 sched_nice; /* Nice value (SCHED_OTHER,
SCHED_BATCH) */
u32 sched_priority; /* Static priority (SCHED_FIFO,
SCHED_RR) */
/* Remaining fields are for SCHED_DEADLINE */
u64 sched_runtime;
u64 sched_deadline;
u64 sched_period;
};
The fields of the sched_attr structure are as follows:
size This field should be set to the size of the structure in bytes,
as in sizeof(struct sched_attr). If the provided structure is
smaller than the kernel structure, any additional fields are as-
sumed to be '0'. If the provided structure is larger than the
kernel structure, the kernel verifies that all additional fields
are 0; if they are not, sched_setattr() fails with the error
E2BIG and updates size to contain the size of the kernel struc-
ture.
The above behavior when the size of the user-space sched_attr
structure does not match the size of the kernel structure allows
for future extensibility of the interface. Malformed applica-
tions that pass oversize structures won't break in the future if
the size of the kernel sched_attr structure is increased. In
the future, it could also allow applications that know about a
larger user-space sched_attr structure to determine whether they
are running on an older kernel that does not support the larger
structure.
sched_policy
This field specifies the scheduling policy, as one of the
SCHED_* values listed above.
sched_flags
This field contains zero or more of the following flags that are
ORed together to control scheduling behavior:
SCHED_FLAG_RESET_ON_FORK
Children created by fork(2) do not inherit privileged
scheduling policies. See sched(7) for details.
SCHED_FLAG_RECLAIM (since Linux 4.13)
This flag allows a SCHED_DEADLINE thread to reclaim band-
width unused by other real-time threads.
SCHED_FLAG_DL_OVERRUN (since Linux 4.16)
This flag allows an application to get informed about
run-time overruns in SCHED_DEADLINE threads. Such over-
runs may be caused by (for example) coarse execution time
accounting or incorrect parameter assignment. Notifica-
tion takes the form of a SIGXCPU signal which is gener-
ated on each overrun.
This SIGXCPU signal is process-directed (see signal(7))
rather than thread-directed. This is probably a bug. On
the one hand, sched_setattr() is being used to set a per-
thread attribute. On the other hand, if the process-di-
rected signal is delivered to a thread inside the process
other than the one that had a run-time overrun, the ap-
plication has no way of knowing which thread overran.
sched_nice
This field specifies the nice value to be set when specifying
sched_policy as SCHED_OTHER or SCHED_BATCH. The nice value is a
number in the range -20 (high priority) to +19 (low priority);
see sched(7).
sched_priority
This field specifies the static priority to be set when specify-
ing sched_policy as SCHED_FIFO or SCHED_RR. The allowed range
of priorities for these policies can be determined using
sched_get_priority_min(2) and sched_get_priority_max(2). For
other policies, this field must be specified as 0.
sched_runtime
This field specifies the "Runtime" parameter for deadline sched-
uling. The value is expressed in nanoseconds. This field, and
the next two fields, are used only for SCHED_DEADLINE schedul-
ing; for further details, see sched(7).
sched_deadline
This field specifies the "Deadline" parameter for deadline
scheduling. The value is expressed in nanoseconds.
sched_period
This field specifies the "Period" parameter for deadline sched-
uling. The value is expressed in nanoseconds.
The flags argument is provided to allow for future extensions to the
interface; in the current implementation it must be specified as 0.
sched_getattr()
The sched_getattr() system call fetches the scheduling policy and the
associated attributes for the thread whose ID is specified in pid. If
pid equals zero, the scheduling policy and attributes of the calling
thread will be retrieved.
The size argument should be set to the size of the sched_attr structure
as known to user space. The value must be at least as large as the
size of the initially published sched_attr structure, or the call fails
with the error EINVAL.
The retrieved scheduling attributes are placed in the fields of the
sched_attr structure pointed to by attr. The kernel sets attr.size to
the size of its sched_attr structure.
If the caller-provided attr buffer is larger than the kernel's
sched_attr structure, the additional bytes in the user-space structure
are not touched. If the caller-provided structure is smaller than the
kernel sched_attr structure and the kernel needs to return values out-
side the provided space, sched_getattr() fails with the error E2BIG.
As with sched_setattr(), these semantics allow for future extensibility
of the interface.
The flags argument is provided to allow for future extensions to the
interface; in the current implementation it must be specified as 0.
RETURN VALUE
On success, sched_setattr() and sched_getattr() return 0. On error, -1
is returned, and errno is set to indicate the cause of the error.
ERRORS
sched_getattr() and sched_setattr() can both fail for the following
reasons:
EINVAL attr is NULL; or pid is negative; or flags is not zero.
ESRCH The thread whose ID is pid could not be found.
In addition, sched_getattr() can fail for the following reasons:
E2BIG The buffer specified by size and attr is too small.
EINVAL size is invalid; that is, it is smaller than the initial version
of the sched_attr structure (48 bytes) or larger than the system
page size.
In addition, sched_setattr() can fail for the following reasons:
E2BIG The buffer specified by size and attr is larger than the kernel
structure, and one or more of the excess bytes is nonzero.
EBUSY SCHED_DEADLINE admission control failure, see sched(7).
EINVAL attr.sched_policy is not one of the recognized policies;
attr.sched_flags contains a flag other than SCHED_FLAG_RE-
SET_ON_FORK; or attr.sched_priority is invalid; or
attr.sched_policy is SCHED_DEADLINE and the deadline scheduling
parameters in attr are invalid.
EPERM The caller does not have appropriate privileges.
EPERM The CPU affinity mask of the thread specified by pid does not
include all CPUs in the system (see sched_setaffinity(2)).
VERSIONS
These system calls first appeared in Linux 3.14.
CONFORMING TO
These system calls are nonstandard Linux extensions.
NOTES
sched_setattr() provides a superset of the functionality of
sched_setscheduler(2), sched_setparam(2), nice(2), and (other than the
ability to set the priority of all processes belonging to a specified
user or all processes in a specified group) setpriority(2). Analo-
gously, sched_getattr() provides a superset of the functionality of
sched_getscheduler(2), sched_getparam(2), and (partially) getprior-
ity(2).
BUGS
In Linux versions up to 3.15, sched_setattr() failed with the error
EFAULT instead of E2BIG for the case described in ERRORS.
SEE ALSO
chrt(1), nice(2), sched_get_priority_max(2), sched_get_priority_min(2),
sched_getaffinity(2), sched_getparam(2), sched_getscheduler(2),
sched_rr_get_interval(2), sched_setaffinity(2), sched_setparam(2),
sched_setscheduler(2), sched_yield(2), setpriority(2),
pthread_getschedparam(3), pthread_setschedparam(3),
pthread_setschedprio(3), capabilities(7), cpuset(7), sched(7)
COLOPHON
This page is part of release 5.07 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 SCHED_SETATTR(2)