CPULIMIT

Cpulimit is a tool that limits the CPU usage of a process (expressed in percentage, not in CPU time). It is useful for controlling batch jobs when you don't want them to consume too many CPU cycles. The goal is to prevent a process from running for more than a specified time ratio. It does not change the nice value or other scheduling priority settings, but instead focuses on the real CPU usage. Additionally, it adapts dynamically and quickly to the overall system load.

Cpulimit is supported on Linux, macOS, and FreeBSD.

The control of CPU usage is achieved by sending SIGSTOP and SIGCONT POSIX signals to processes. If the -i option is enabled, all child processes of the specified process will share the same percentage of CPU usage.

Developed by Angelo Marletta. Please send your feedback, bug reports, feature requests, or just thanks.

This forked repository is maintained by HiGarfield. This repository has undergone extensive bug fixes and code improvements based on the original repository.

Usage

cpulimit [OPTIONS...] TARGET

• OPTIONS:

Option	Description
-l LIMIT, --limit=LIMIT	CPU percentage limit from 0 to N_CPU*100 (required)
-v, --verbose	show control statistics
-z, --lazy	exit if the target process is missing or stopped
-i, --include-children	also limit the child processes
-h, --help	display the help message and exit

• TARGET: must be exactly one of these:

Target	Description
-p PID, --pid=PID	PID of the target process (implies -z)
-e FILE, --exe=FILE	name or path of the executable file
COMMAND [ARGS]	run the command and limit CPU usage (implies -z)

Note: When the -e option is used with an absolute path (starting with '/'), the process is searched using that path; only processes started with an absolute path in their command can be matched. If the -e option is given a filename without a path or a relative path, the match will be based on its basename.

Get the Latest Source Code

This repository is forked from:

• Original Repository: https://github.com/opsengine/cpulimit

The latest available code is here:

• HiGarfield's Repository: https://github.com/HiGarfield/cpulimit

Instructions

Build and Install

• On Linux/macOS:

  make  # For older compilers, try: make NOFLAGS=1
  sudo make install

• On FreeBSD:

  gmake  # For older compilers, try: gmake NOFLAGS=1
  sudo gmake install

Uninstall

• On Linux/macOS:

  sudo make uninstall

• On FreeBSD:

  sudo gmake uninstall

Run Unit Tests

./tests/process_iterator_test

Test cpulimit with a Single Process

./src/cpulimit -l 40 -v ./tests/busy

Test cpulimit with Child Processes

./src/cpulimit -l 40 -i -v ./tests/multi_process_busy

Contributions

You are welcome to contribute to cpulimit with bug fixes, new features, or support for a new OS. If you want to submit a pull request, please do it on the develop branch and ensure that all tests pass.