limit processor usage by %

[Nifty Hat Mitch]

On Sat, Sep 25, 2004 at 08:28:49PM -0300, Francisco Figueiredo Jr. wrote:
> 
> I'd like to know if there is some way I could limit the processor usage 
> of an application.
> 
> I mean, I have a cpu eat application but I'd like to give it just 30% of 
> my processor. Is there some way I could do that?
> 
> I saw ulimit, but it limits the processor usage by time.

The most common way to address this is with the nice and renice 
commands.

Most people do not care if something gets 100% of an unused system if
it will go to the back of the line (queue) when there is more
important (interactive) work to do.  Since a process might hold some a
lock on some system resource that another process might need it is not
good practice to throttle processes so fully that they make no
progress.

See also setpriority(), sleep(), usleep(), nanosleep() for
programmers.  It can be valuable to build knobs into applications
to make them better citizens on a multi tasking machine.

Some people use job control signals to manage tasks.

It is possible to over manage a system and make it look broken.


-- 
	T o m  M i t c h e l l 
	Me, I would "Rather" Not.