#### Summary:
Setting a thread priority to anything other than zero using a sch…eduling policy of Round Robin fails with an EPERM when running as root.
#### Details:
After building the SDK and an image on an Ubuntu 14.04 LTS I tried to set the priority of a thread created as root and received an EPERM. I then pulled the source code below is directly from the man pages for pthread_setschedparam to investigate further and it too returns EPERM when run as root with the command line options `-ar20 -ie`. Just to make sure my SDK or image where not at fault I scp'd the program to a Rackspace machine running the Alpha release and it also failed with EPERM.
To compile: `gcc -Wall pthreads_sched_test.c -lpthread -o sched_test`
#### Usage:
```
Usage: ./sched_test [options]
Options are:
-a<policy><prio> Set scheduling policy and priority in
thread attributes object
<policy> can be
f SCHED_FIFO
r SCHED_RR
o SCHED_OTHER
-A Use default thread attributes object
-i {e|i} Set inherit scheduler attribute to
'explicit' or 'inherit'
-m<policy><prio> Set scheduling policy and priority on
main thread before pthread_create() call
```
#### Receive an EPERM executing as root:
Set the scheduling policy to SCHED_RR (r), the priority to 20, and the inherit scheduling policy to "explicit". `./sched_test -ar20 -ie`
```
localhost core # ./sched_test -ar20 -ie
Scheduler settings of main thread
policy=SCHED_OTHER, priority=0
Scheduler settings in 'attr'
policy=SCHED_RR, priority=20
inheritsched is EXPLICIT
pthread_create: Operation not permitted
```
#### Ulimits are set to "unlimited":
```
localhost core # ulimit -a
core file size (blocks, -c) 0
data seg size (kbytes, -d) unlimited
scheduling priority (-e) unlimited
file size (blocks, -f) unlimited
pending signals (-i) 3825
max locked memory (kbytes, -l) 64
max memory size (kbytes, -m) unlimited
open files (-n) 1024
pipe size (512 bytes, -p) 8
POSIX message queues (bytes, -q) 819200
real-time priority (-r) unlimited
stack size (kbytes, -s) 8192
cpu time (seconds, -t) unlimited
max user processes (-u) 3825
virtual memory (kbytes, -v) unlimited
file locks (-x) unlimited
```
#### Contents of /etc/os-release
```
core@localhost ~ $ cat /etc/os-release
NAME=CoreOS
ID=coreos
VERSION=734.0.0+2015-07-05-1552
VERSION_ID=734.0.0
BUILD_ID=2015-07-05-1552
PRETTY_NAME="CoreOS 734.0.0+2015-07-05-1552"
ANSI_COLOR="1;32"
HOME_URL="https://coreos.com/"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://github.com/coreos/bugs/issues"
```
#### Source code from pthread_setschedparam man page:
``` c
/* pthreads_sched_test.c */
#include <pthread.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <errno.h>
#define handle_error_en(en, msg) \
do { errno = en; perror(msg); exit(EXIT_FAILURE); } while (0)
static void
usage(char *prog_name, char *msg)
{
if (msg != NULL)
fputs(msg, stderr);
fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s [options]\n", prog_name);
fprintf(stderr, "Options are:\n");
#define fpe(msg) fprintf(stderr, "\t%s", msg); /* Shorter */
fpe("-a<policy><prio> Set scheduling policy and priority in\n");
fpe(" thread attributes object\n");
fpe(" <policy> can be\n");
fpe(" f SCHED_FIFO\n");
fpe(" r SCHED_RR\n");
fpe(" o SCHED_OTHER\n");
fpe("-A Use default thread attributes object\n");
fpe("-i {e|i} Set inherit scheduler attribute to\n");
fpe(" 'explicit' or 'inherit'\n");
fpe("-m<policy><prio> Set scheduling policy and priority on\n");
fpe(" main thread before pthread_create() call\n");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
static int
get_policy(char p, int *policy)
{
switch (p) {
case 'f': *policy = SCHED_FIFO; return 1;
case 'r': *policy = SCHED_RR; return 1;
case 'o': *policy = SCHED_OTHER; return 1;
default: return 0;
}
}
static void
display_sched_attr(int policy, struct sched_param *param)
{
printf(" policy=%s, priority=%d\n",
(policy == SCHED_FIFO) ? "SCHED_FIFO" :
(policy == SCHED_RR) ? "SCHED_RR" :
(policy == SCHED_OTHER) ? "SCHED_OTHER" :
"???",
param->sched_priority);
}
static void
display_thread_sched_attr(char *msg)
{
int policy, s;
struct sched_param param;
s = pthread_getschedparam(pthread_self(), &policy, ¶m);
if (s != 0)
handle_error_en(s, "pthread_getschedparam");
printf("%s\n", msg);
display_sched_attr(policy, ¶m);
}
static void *
thread_start(void *arg)
{
display_thread_sched_attr("Scheduler attributes of new thread");
return NULL;
}
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
int s, opt, inheritsched, use_null_attrib, policy;
pthread_t thread;
pthread_attr_t attr;
pthread_attr_t *attrp;
char *attr_sched_str, *main_sched_str, *inheritsched_str;
struct sched_param param;
/* Process command-line options */
use_null_attrib = 0;
attr_sched_str = NULL;
main_sched_str = NULL;
inheritsched_str = NULL;
while ((opt = getopt(argc, argv, "a:Ai:m:")) != -1) {
switch (opt) {
case 'a': attr_sched_str = optarg; break;
case 'A': use_null_attrib = 1; break;
case 'i': inheritsched_str = optarg; break;
case 'm': main_sched_str = optarg; break;
default: usage(argv[0], "Unrecognized option\n");
}
}
if (use_null_attrib &&
(inheritsched_str != NULL || attr_sched_str != NULL))
usage(argv[0], "Can't specify -A with -i or -a\n");
/* Optionally set scheduling attributes of main thread,
and display the attributes */
if (main_sched_str != NULL) {
if (!get_policy(main_sched_str[0], &policy))
usage(argv[0], "Bad policy for main thread (-m)\n");
param.sched_priority = strtol(&main_sched_str[1], NULL, 0);
s = pthread_setschedparam(pthread_self(), policy, ¶m);
if (s != 0)
handle_error_en(s, "pthread_setschedparam");
}
display_thread_sched_attr("Scheduler settings of main thread");
printf("\n");
/* Initialize thread attributes object according to options */
attrp = NULL;
if (!use_null_attrib) {
s = pthread_attr_init(&attr);
if (s != 0)
handle_error_en(s, "pthread_attr_init");
attrp = &attr;
}
if (inheritsched_str != NULL) {
if (inheritsched_str[0] == 'e')
inheritsched = PTHREAD_EXPLICIT_SCHED;
else if (inheritsched_str[0] == 'i')
inheritsched = PTHREAD_INHERIT_SCHED;
else
usage(argv[0], "Value for -i must be 'e' or 'i'\n");
s = pthread_attr_setinheritsched(&attr, inheritsched);
if (s != 0)
handle_error_en(s, "pthread_attr_setinheritsched");
}
if (attr_sched_str != NULL) {
if (!get_policy(attr_sched_str[0], &policy))
usage(argv[0],
"Bad policy for 'attr' (-a)\n");
param.sched_priority = strtol(&attr_sched_str[1], NULL, 0);
s = pthread_attr_setschedpolicy(&attr, policy);
if (s != 0)
handle_error_en(s, "pthread_attr_setschedpolicy");
s = pthread_attr_setschedparam(&attr, ¶m);
if (s != 0)
handle_error_en(s, "pthread_attr_setschedparam");
}
/* If we initialized a thread attributes object, display
the scheduling attributes that were set in the object */
if (attrp != NULL) {
s = pthread_attr_getschedparam(&attr, ¶m);
if (s != 0)
handle_error_en(s, "pthread_attr_getschedparam");
s = pthread_attr_getschedpolicy(&attr, &policy);
if (s != 0)
handle_error_en(s, "pthread_attr_getschedpolicy");
printf("Scheduler settings in 'attr'\n");
display_sched_attr(policy, ¶m);
s = pthread_attr_getinheritsched(&attr, &inheritsched);
printf(" inheritsched is %s\n",
(inheritsched == PTHREAD_INHERIT_SCHED) ? "INHERIT" :
(inheritsched == PTHREAD_EXPLICIT_SCHED) ? "EXPLICIT" :
"???");
printf("\n");
}
/* Create a thread that will display its scheduling attributes */
s = pthread_create(&thread, attrp, &thread_start, NULL);
if (s != 0)
handle_error_en(s, "pthread_create");
/* Destroy unneeded thread attributes object */
if (!use_null_attrib) {
s = pthread_attr_destroy(&attr);
if (s != 0)
handle_error_en(s, "pthread_attr_destroy");
}
s = pthread_join(thread, NULL);
if (s != 0)
handle_error_en(s, "pthread_join");
exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}
```