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

I combined some of the answers and added a way to scale the stress to all available cpus:

#!/bin/bash

function infinite_loop { 
    while [ 1 ] ; do
        # Force some computation even if it is useless to actually work the CPU
        echo $((13**99)) 1>/dev/null 2>&1
    done
}

# Either use environment variables for DURATION, or define them here
NUM_CPU=$(grep -c ^processor /proc/cpuinfo 2>/dev/null || sysctl -n hw.ncpu)
PIDS=()
for i in `seq ${NUM_CPU}` ;
do
# Put an infinite loop on each CPU
    infinite_loop &
    PIDS+=("$!")
done

# Wait DURATION seconds then stop the loops and quit
sleep ${DURATION}

# Parent kills its children 
for pid in "${PIDS[@]}"
do
    kill $pid
done