How to create a CPU spike with a bash command

Question

I want to create a near 100% load on a Linux machine. It\'s quad core system and I want all cores going full speed. Ideally, the CPU load would last a designated amount of

Answer 1

Utilizing ideas here, created code which exits automatically after a set duration, don't have to kill processes --

#!/bin/bash
echo "Usage : ./killproc_ds.sh 6 60  (6 threads for 60 secs)"

# Define variables
NUM_PROCS=${1:-6} #How much scaling you want to do
duration=${2:-20}    # seconds

function infinite_loop {
endtime=$(($(date +%s) + $duration))
while (($(date +%s) < $endtime)); do
    #echo $(date +%s)
    echo $((13**99)) 1>/dev/null 2>&1
    $(dd if=/dev/urandom count=10000 status=none| bzip2 -9 >> /dev/null) 2>&1 >&/dev/null
done
echo "Done Stressing the system - for thread $1"
}


echo Running for duration $duration secs, spawning $NUM_PROCS threads in background
for i in `seq ${NUM_PROCS}` ;
do
# Put an infinite loop
    infinite_loop $i  &
done