Use cpulimit to limit cpu usage in real time

[alok]

OK I know, that you know how to check the cpu utilization of a process using top, htop, mpstat and sar command.

We can view the cpu being consumed by a process. But how to control it?

Here comes a very simple fun tool - cpulimit

Feel free to download it from http://cpulimit.sourceforge.net/

Those using ubuntu can download it by this simple command.

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sudo apt-get install cpulimit

Now the best thing about cpulimit is that it attempts to limit the cpu usage of a process. Limits are expressed in percentage and not in cpu time. cpulimit does not act on the nice value or other scheduling priority stuff, but on the real cpu usage.


Example #1 - To limit the cpu usage of a process evolution under 20%.

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sudo cpulimit -e evolution -l 20

Example #2. You can also use the pid of the process for the same job.

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sudo cpulimit -p 8888 -l 20

Here is the screenshot from my machine.. enjoy !!

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cpulimit restricting cpu usage