Verynice
From K12LTSP Wiki
Vernice is best described by the [[|http://tam.cornell.edu/~sdh4/verynice/ official verynice page]]. An excerpt of that page follows.
A Dynamic Process Re-nicer
Verynice is a tool for dynamically adjusting the nice-level of processes under UNIX-like operating systems. It can also be used to kill off runaway processes and increase the priority of multimedia applications, while properly handling both batch computation jobs and interactive applications with long periods of high CPU usage.
Unlike most other process re-nice tools, Verynice is not only capable of lowering a CPU bound process's priority (raising the nice level), but it is also capable of raising the priority back up when the process is no longer heavily using the CPU. It is also configurable, so it can detect different users and different programs and act accordingly. For example, it can be configured to detect and kill certain programs (such as netscape) that have a tendency to die with 100% cpu usage, but the program will only be killed under stringent conditions so that it is very unlikely that it would be killed improperly.
Verynice can be adjusted by editing the /etc/verynice.conf file with your [[|http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs.html favorite editor]]. The section that you will most likely be interested in "runawayexe" section near the end of the config file. Place the name of any application that traditionally eats up all your CPU usage. Save your changes to the file and restart the vernice service with...
service verynice.init restart
