Question

I am looking for a Linux tool to generate workloads with pre-defined cpu, disk and network utilization. For example, I need to keep my cpu utilization on 55% and the disk utilization on 30% for a minute on my Ubuntu workstation. Is there any tool to generate such workloads for cpu, disk and net?

p.s. It is preferable to have one tool to do all the above mentioned features. But, if there are different tools for cpu, disk and net, I will be happy if you could share the links.

Answer 1

As there is no take 30% of system resources function, i don’t think there is a corresponding tool. The Linux kernel gives out as much resources as needed and free, depending on the scheduling mechanism and more.

A tool like you are looking for would have to:

• Generate Load (no problem)
• Check the system load (no problem)
• Regulate the power of the load generating functions (BIG problem)

The different amount of load could be accomplished with dynamic sleeps, and more, but the difficulty is very high, the efficiency very low.

For disk IO you could test IOZone for example, and play a little bit with the parameters.