Non-root users can't renice their own processes in RHEL 7

Solution In Progress - Updated -

Issue

  • We are no longer able to renice an owned process since upgrading to RHEL7.

  • renice Won't Allow Priority Change on Owned Processes

  • Non-root users can renice some processes but not others
    For example, why can't the ping command be reniced?

    [rsaw]$ uname -r
    3.10.0-229.7.2.el7.x86_64
    [rsaw]$ cat /etc/redhat-release
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 7.1 (Maipo)
    [rsaw]$ ping localhost &>/dev/null &
    [1] 4609
    [rsaw]$ ps -p $! -onice,args
     NI COMMAND
      0 ping localhost
    [rsaw]$ renice 15 $!
    renice: failed to set priority for 4609 (process ID): Operation not permitted
    

    In contrast, on RHEL 6 (and every earlier version of Linux), it works as expected:

    [rsaw]$ uname -r
    2.6.32-504.30.3.el6.x86_64
    [rsaw]$ cat /etc/redhat-release
    Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 6.6 (Santiago)
    [rsaw]$ ping localhost &>/dev/null &
    [1] 12212
    [rsaw]$ ps -onice,args -p $!
     NI COMMAND
      0 ping localhost
    [rsaw]$ renice 15 $!
    12212: old priority 0, new priority 15
    [rsaw]$ ps -onice,args -p $!
     NI COMMAND
     15 ping localhost
    

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7

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