XK0-006 System Management Practice Question
A process is running with a nice value of 5. The system administrator wants to increase its priority (lower the nice value) to -5 but is not the owner of the process. What must the administrator do first to achieve this?
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Use renice with root privileges via sudo
Only root can increase priority (lower nice value) of another user's process. The administrator must use sudo or become root to run renice. Option A is incorrect because renice -n +10 would increase the nice value (reduce priority), not decrease it. Option B is incorrect because the nice command starts a new process with a specified nice value; it cannot change the priority of an existing process. Option D is incorrect because stopping and restarting the process would change its PID and is unnecessary; the correct approach is to use renice with sudo.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Use renice -n +10
Why it's wrong here
Would lower priority, not increase.
- ✗
Use the nice command with -n -5
Why it's wrong here
nice is for starting a new process with a given nice value, not changing existing.
- ✓
Use renice with root privileges via sudo
Why this is correct
Correct: renice requires root to change priority of another user's process.
- ✗
Use kill -SIGSTOP to stop the process then restart
Why it's wrong here
Not the proper way to change priority.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
User and Group Administration
Key term
sudo
sudo is a command-line utility in Unix-like operating systems that allows a permitted user to execute a program as another user, typically the superuser (root), based on security policy settings.
Key term
User
A user is any person, system, or device that interacts with an IT service, resource, or identity system, typically authenticated through credentials and authorized to perform specific actions.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This XK0-006 practice question is part of Courseiva's free CompTIA certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the XK0-006 exam.