Nice in systemd unit is always 5

[jee-r]

Hello
I noticed that nice in global section is not correctly passed to systemd unit template.

for example with this config

version: "1"
global:
  nice: 17
default:
  repository: "my_repo"
  password-file: "key"
  backup:
    exclude-file: "excludes"
    exclude-caches: true
    one-file-system: true
    tag:
      - "test"
    source:
      - "/tmp/"
    schedule: "*-*-* 12:15:00"
    schedule-permission: system
    schedule-priority: background
    schedule-lock-mode: default
    schedule-lock-wait: 15m30s

After running schedule the systemd unit file is

cat /etc/systemd/system/[email protected]
[Unit]
Description=resticprofile backup for profile default in ./profiles.yaml

[Service]
Type=notify
WorkingDirectory=/tmp
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/resticprofile --no-prio --no-ansi --config ./profiles.yaml --name default --lock-wait 15m30s backup
Nice=5
Environment="HOME=/root"
Environment="SUDO_USER=test"

Nice is set to 5 and not to 17 as expected

[creativeprojects]

This is right, I can see in systemd that nice is set to a predefined value:

resticprofile/systemd/generate.go

Line 121 in 3476fbc

nice := constants.DefaultBackgroundNiceFlag

Thanks for the report 👍🏻

[flolilo]

Hello,
Just wanted to chime in that when starting resticprofile from the terminal with:

# leaving out definitely unrelated settings, i.e. paths
global:
  # neither this:
  priority: "idle"
  # nor this:
  nice: 19
  # ...nor both together change anything.

default:
  backup:
    verbose: 2

also will create restic instances with the default niceness.

• resticprofile version: resticprofile version 0.24.0 commit bcfaaa7
• restic version: restic 0.16.2 compiled with go1.21.3 on linux/amd64

Edit: resticprofile itself respects the setting, only the restic instances are started at the default niceness.

[scy]

will create restic instances with the default niceness

Can confirm, I'm seeing this too.

• resticprofile version 0.26.0 commit 2ab1f3a
• restic 0.16.4 compiled with go1.21.6 on linux/amd64
• Linux 6.1.0-17-amd64 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 6.1.69-1 (2023-12-30) x86_64 (bookworm)

Now, I'm no Go programmer, and only somewhat familiar with the Unix/Linux API, but it looks to me as if you're creating a process group, but then setting the niceness only for the current process and not the group in https://github.com/creativeprojects/resticprofile/blob/master/priority/linux.go#L52-L60:

err = unix.Setpriority(unix.PRIO_PROCESS, pid, priority)

Could using PRIO_PGRP instead of PRIO_PROCESS be enough to fix that?

[creativeprojects]

Could using PRIO_PGRP instead of PRIO_PROCESS be enough to fix that?

Well spotted!

If you guys are ok with compiling go code, can you try again with this MR? #339

(This is a fix when running from the terminal, not from systemd)

[flolilo]

Hello again!

#339 seems to work for me!

[scy]

(This is a fix when running from the terminal, not from systemd)

Can confirm that this indeed fixes it, but only when not running from a systemd unit (i.e. scheduled). In other words, scheduled runs are still broken.

[chymian]

@creativeprojects any progress on that year old very annoying bug, while running from systemd?

using v.28 and my (elderly) laptop – since it gained a new, fast NVMe – gets always unresponsive while checking/backing up.

priority = "Idle" # tried 19, Background, etc…
ionice = true
ionice-class = 3
ionice-level = 7

[creativeprojects]

I was waiting for a big refactoring of the scheduling to allow for configuration v1 and v2 to be scheduled using the same code. That part is done ✅

Now I still need to ensure the parameters make sense, as with systemd, nothing is never straightforward 😆

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/340283/using-and-understanding-systemd-scheduling-related-options-in-a-desktop-context

I do have limited capacity (evening after work) but I'll look at it next 😛

[creativeprojects]

Do you guys want to give it a try before I push a new version?

You just need to install resticprofile from source, the code is merged into the main branch.