This document details how to use the REST API to perform actions on a given sid:
http://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/6.3.3/RESTREF/RESTsearch#search.2Fjobs.2F.7Bsearch_id.7D...
One of the commands is setpriority which is documented as:
setpriority: Sets the priority of the search process. Arguments: priority=<0-10>
But it's unclear what the different values would do to a search. By default it seems most ad-hoc searches are given a priority value of 5.
If I have a query that I need to run with a higher priority (i.e. given preferential treatment over other searches running at priority level 5), should I set the priority level to 4 or 6? Is a priority level of 0 the most preferred, or is it 10? Or am I mis-interpreting what priority means on a search?
As per http://docs.splunk.com/Documentation/Splunk/6.3.3/RESTREF/RESTsearch#search.2Fjobs a higher number means a higher priority:
priority An integer between 0-10 that indicates the search priority.
The priority is mapped to the OS process priority. The higher the number the higher the priority. The priority can be changed using action parameter for POST search/jobs/{search_id}/control. For example, for the action parameter, specify priority=5.
Note: In *nix systems, non-privileged users can only reduce the priority of a process.