Limiting the resources of Ubuntu

Limiting resources of specific processes under Ubuntu


On Ubuntu (and on most Linux distributions) you can easily prevent a program to consume all the power of the computer. Here's how:

Limit CPU usage

If an application uses the CPU at 100%, this could block everything. You can limit the process with the cpu limit command. Open a terminal and type:

cpulimit -e process -l 40

In this example this "process" will be limited to 40% maximum.
You can also use the process PID (which can determine top):

cpulimit -p 130 -l 40

There the process with PID 130 would be limited to 40%.
We simply open the program then set the limit.
It may be that you have to install cpulimit before. Refer to your distribution for that. The official website is http://cpulimit.sourceforge.net/.

Restrict disk access

If an application is using excessive disk drive, the system may crash , You can use the ionice command to solve this issue.
ionice -c3 PID
This command reduces disk access priority of a process (defined by its PID).
We simply open the program then set the limit.
Again it must be installed if it is not. (official site?)

Limiting bandwidth

A good thing is to limit the bandwidth (upload and download).
The command to be uses is trickle. Close program and then launch the command:

trickle -d 90 program

The program will be limited to 90Kbps for download. To limit upload, use the option "-u":

trickle -u 90 program

Here, the program is closed, and is limited from the start. To remove the limitation you must close and re-open it.
Again, you may need to install trickle if it is not set up by default.

http://monkey.org/~marius/pages/?page=trickle