TASKSET(1) User Commands TASKSET(1)
NAME
taskset - retrieve or set a process's CPU affinity
SYNOPSIS
taskset [options] mask command [arg]...
taskset [options] -p [mask] pid
DESCRIPTION
taskset is used to set or retrieve the CPU affinity of a running process given its PID or to launch a new COM‐
MAND with a given CPU affinity. CPU affinity is a scheduler property that "bonds" a process to a given set of
CPUs on the system. The Linux scheduler will honor the given CPU affinity and the process will not run on any
other CPUs. Note that the Linux scheduler also supports natural CPU affinity: the scheduler attempts to keep
processes on the same CPU as long as practical for performance reasons. Therefore, forcing a specific CPU
affinity is useful only in certain applications.
The CPU affinity is represented as a bitmask, with the lowest order bit corresponding to the first logical CPU
and the highest order bit corresponding to the last logical CPU. Not all CPUs may exist on a given system but
a mask may specify more CPUs than are present. A retrieved mask will reflect only the bits that correspond to
CPUs physically on the system. If an invalid mask is given (i.e., one that corresponds to no valid CPUs on
the current system) an error is returned. The masks are typically given in hexadecimal. For example,
0x00000001
is processor #0
0x00000003
is processors #0 and #1
0xFFFFFFFF
is all processors (#0 through #31).
When taskset returns, it is guaranteed that the given program has been scheduled to a legal CPU.
OPTIONS
-a, --all-tasks
Set or retrieve the CPU affinity of all the tasks (threads) for a given PID.
-p, --pid
Operate on an existing PID and do not launch a new task.
-c, --cpu-list
Specify a numerical list of processors instead of a bitmask. The numbers are separated by commas and
may include ranges. For example: 0,5,7,9-11.
-h, --help
Display usage information and exit.
-V, --version
Display version information and exit.
USAGE
The default behavior is to run a new command with a given affinity mask:
taskset mask command [arguments]
You can also retrieve the CPU affinity of an existing task:
taskset -p pid
Copyright © 2004 Robert M. Love
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO warranty; not even for MER‐
CHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
SEE ALSO
chrt(1), nice(1), renice(1), sched_setaffinity(2), sched_getaffinity(2)
See sched_setscheduler(2) for a description of the Linux scheduling scheme.
AVAILABILITY
The taskset command is part of the util-linux package and is available from ftp://ftp.ker‐
nel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.
util-linux April 2003 TASKSET(1)
Back to main site | Back to man page index