stress-ng

stress-ng will stress test a computer system in various selectable ways. It was designed to exercise various physical subsystems of a computer as well as the various operating system kernel interfaces. Stress-ng features:

Over 280 stress tests
80+ CPU specific stress tests that exercise floating point, integer, bit manipulation and control flow
over 20 virtual memory stress tests
portable: builds on Linux (Debian, Devuan, RHEL, Fedora, Centos, Slackware OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, etc..), Solaris, *BSD, Minix, Android, MacOS X, GNU/Hurd, Haiku, Windows Subsystem for Linux and SunOs/Dilos with gcc, clang, icc, tcc and pcc.
tested on alpha, armhf, arm64, hppa, i386, m68k, mips32, mips64, ppc64el, risc-v, s390x, sparc64, x86-64

stress-ng was originally intended to make a machine work hard and trip hardware issues such as thermal overruns as well as operating system bugs that only occur when a system is being thrashed hard. Use stress-ng with caution as some of the tests can make a system run hot on poorly designed hardware and also can cause excessive system thrashing which may be difficult to stop.

stress-ng can also measure test throughput rates; this can be useful to observe performance changes across different operating system releases or types of hardware. However, it has never been intended to be used as a precise benchmark test suite, so do NOT use it in this manner.

Running stress-ng with root privileges will adjust out of memory settings on Linux systems to make the stressors unkillable in low memory situations, so use this judiciously. With the appropriate privilege, stress-ng can allow the ionice class and ionice levels to be adjusted, again, this should be used with care.

Tarballs

Tarballs of each version of stress-ng can be downloaded using the URL:

https://github.com/ColinIanKing/stress-ng/tarball/version

where version is the relevant version number, for example:

https://github.com/ColinIanKing/stress-ng/tarball/V0.13.05

Building stress-ng

To build, the following libraries will ensure a fully functional stress-ng build: (note libattr is not required for more recent disto releases).

Debian, Ubuntu:

libaio-dev
libapparmor-dev
libattr1-dev
libbsd-dev
libcap-dev
libgcrypt11-dev
libipsec-mb-dev
libjpeg-dev
libjudy-dev
libkeyutils-dev
libsctp-dev
libatomic1
zlib1g-dev
libkmod-dev
libxxhash-dev

RHEL, Fedora, Centos:

libaio-devel
libattr-devel
libbsd-devel
libcap-devel
libgcrypt-devel
libjpeg-devel
Judy-devel
keyutils-libs-devel
lksctp-tools-devel
libatomic
zlib-devel
kmod-devel
xxhash-devel

RHEL, Fedora, Centos (static builds):

libaio-devel
libattr-devel
libbsd-devel
libcap-devel
libgcrypt-devel
libjpeg-devel
Judy-devel
keyutils-libs-devel
lksctp-tools-devel
libatomic-static
zlib-devel
glibc-static
xxhash-devel

SUSE:

keyutils-devel
libaio-devel
libapparmor-devel
libattr-devel
libbsd-devel
libcap-devel
libseccomp-devel
libjpeg-turbo
lksctp-tools-devel
libatomic1
zlib-devel
libkmod-devel
xxhash-devel

ClearLinux:

devpkg-libattr
devpkg-libbsd
devpkg-libsctp
devpkg-libjpeg-turbo
devpkg-Judy
devpkg-libgcrypt
devpkg-kmod

NOTE: the build will try to detect build dependencies and will build an image with functionality disabled if the support libraries are not installed.

At build-time stress-ng will detect kernel features that are available on the target build system and enable stress tests appropriately. Stress-ng has been build-tested on Ubuntu, Debian, Debian GNU/Hurd, Slackware, RHEL, SLES, Centos, kFreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD, Debian kFreeBSD, DragonFly BSD, OS X, Minix, Solaris 11.3, OpenIndiana and Hiaku. Ports to other POSIX/UNIX like operating systems should be relatively easy.

NOTE: ALWAYS run make clean after fetching changes from the git repository to force the build to regenerate the build configuration file.

To build on BSD systems, one requires gcc and GNU make:

        CC=gcc gmake clean
	CC=gcc gmake

To build on OS X systems, just use:

	make clean
	make

To build on MINIX, gmake and clang are required:

	CC=clang gmake clean
	CC=clang gmake

To build on SunOS, one requires GCC and GNU make, build using:

	CC=gcc gmake clean
	CC=gcc gmake

To build on Dilos, one requires GCC and GNU make, build using:

	CC=gcc gmake clean
	CC=gcc gmake

To build on Haiku Alpha 4:

	make clean
	make

To build a static image (example, for Android), use:

	make clean
	STATIC=1 make

To build with full warnings enabled:

	make clean
	PEDANTIC=1 make

To build with the Tiny C compiler:

	make clean
	CC=tcc make

To build with the PCC portable C compiler use:

	make clean
	CC=pcc make

To build with the musl C library:

	CC=musl-gcc make

To build with the Intel C compiler use:

	make clean
	CC=icc make

Contributing to stress-ng:

Send patches to colin.i.king@gmail.com or merge requests at https://github.com/ColinIanKing/stress-ng

Quick Start Reference Guide

The Ubuntu stress-ng reference guide contains a brief overview and worked examples.

Examples

Run 4 CPU, 2 virtual memory, 1 disk and 8 fork stressors for 2 minutes and print measurements:

stress-ng --cpu 4 --vm 2 --hdd 1 --fork 8 --timeout 2m --metrics
stress-ng: info:  [573366] setting to a 120 second (2 mins, 0.00 secs) run per stressor
stress-ng: info:  [573366] dispatching hogs: 4 cpu, 2 vm, 1 hdd, 8 fork
stress-ng: info:  [573366] successful run completed in 123.78s (2 mins, 3.78 secs)
stress-ng: info:  [573366] stressor       bogo ops real time  usr time  sys time   bogo ops/s     bogo ops/s CPU used per
stress-ng: info:  [573366]                           (secs)    (secs)    (secs)   (real time) (usr+sys time) instance (%)
stress-ng: info:  [573366] cpu              515396    120.00    453.02      0.18      4294.89        1137.24        94.42
stress-ng: info:  [573366] vm              2261023    120.01    223.80      1.80     18840.15       10022.27        93.99
stress-ng: info:  [573366] hdd              367558    123.78     10.63     11.67      2969.49       16482.42        18.02
stress-ng: info:  [573366] fork             598058    120.00     68.24     65.88      4983.80        4459.13        13.97

Run matrix stressor on all online CPUs for 60 seconds and measure temperature:

stress-ng --matrix -1 --tz -t 60
stress-ng: info:  [1171459] setting to a 60 second run per stressor
stress-ng: info:  [1171459] dispatching hogs: 8 matrix
stress-ng: info:  [1171459] successful run completed in 60.01s (1 min, 0.01 secs)
stress-ng: info:  [1171459] matrix:
stress-ng: info:  [1171459]               acpitz0   75.00 C (348.15 K)
stress-ng: info:  [1171459]               acpitz1   75.00 C (348.15 K)
stress-ng: info:  [1171459]          pch_skylake   60.17 C (333.32 K)
stress-ng: info:  [1171459]         x86_pkg_temp   62.72 C (335.87 K)

Run a mix of 4 I/O stressors and check for changes in disk S.M.A.R.T. metadata:

sudo stress-ng --iomix 4 --smart -t 30s
stress-ng: info:  [1171471] setting to a 30 second run per stressor
stress-ng: info:  [1171471] dispatching hogs: 4 iomix
stress-ng: info:  [1171471] successful run completed in 30.37s
stress-ng: info:  [1171471] Device     ID S.M.A.R.T. Attribute                 Value      Change
stress-ng: info:  [1171471] sdc        01 Read Error Rate                   88015771       71001
stress-ng: info:  [1171471] sdc        07 Seek Error Rate                   59658169          92
stress-ng: info:  [1171471] sdc        c3 Hardware ECC Recovered            88015771       71001
stress-ng: info:  [1171471] sdc        f1 Total LBAs Written               481904395         877
stress-ng: info:  [1171471] sdc        f2 Total LBAs Read                 3768039248        5139
stress-ng: info:  [1171471] sdd        be Temperature Difference             3670049           1

Benchmark system calls using the VDSO:

stress-ng --vdso 1 -t 5 --metrics
stress-ng: info:  [1171584] setting to a 5 second run per stressor
stress-ng: info:  [1171584] dispatching hogs: 1 vdso
stress-ng: info:  [1171585] stress-ng-vdso: exercising vDSO functions: clock_gettime time gettimeofday getcpu
stress-ng: info:  [1171585] stress-ng-vdso: 9.88 nanoseconds per call (excluding 1.73 nanoseconds test overhead)
stress-ng: info:  [1171584] successful run completed in 5.10s
stress-ng: info:  [1171584] stressor       bogo ops real time  usr time  sys time   bogo ops/s     bogo ops/s CPU used per
stress-ng: info:  [1171584]                           (secs)    (secs)    (secs)   (real time) (usr+sys time) instance (%)
stress-ng: info:  [1171584] vdso          430633496      5.10      5.10      0.00  84375055.96    84437940.39        99.93
stress-ng: info:  [1171584] vdso               9.88 nanoseconds per call (average per stressor)

Generate and measure branch misses using perf metrics:

sudo stress-ng --branch 1 --perf -t 10 2>& 1 | grep Branch
stress-ng: info:  [1171714]                604,703,327 Branch Instructions            53.30 M/sec
stress-ng: info:  [1171714]                598,760,234 Branch Misses                  52.77 M/sec (99.02%)

Bugs found with stress-ng

stress-ng has found several Linux Kernel bugs and appropriate fixes have been landed to address these issues:

Kernel improvements that used stress-ng

Presentations

Citations

I am keen to add to the stress-ng project page any citations to research or projects that use stress-ng. I also appreciate information concerning kernel bugs or performance regressions found with stress-ng.

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 10,250 Commits
.github/workflows		.github/workflows
bash-completion		bash-completion
debian		debian
example-jobs		example-jobs
mascot		mascot
snap		snap
test		test
.gitignore		.gitignore
.travis.yml		.travis.yml
COPYING		COPYING
Dockerfile		Dockerfile
Makefile		Makefile
Makefile.config		Makefile.config
README.Android		README.Android
README.md		README.md
TODO		TODO
code-of-conduct.txt		code-of-conduct.txt
core-affinity.c		core-affinity.c
core-arch.h		core-arch.h
core-bitops.h		core-bitops.h
core-builtin.h		core-builtin.h
core-cache.c		core-cache.c
core-cache.h		core-cache.h
core-capabilities.h		core-capabilities.h
core-cpu.c		core-cpu.c
core-cpu.h		core-cpu.h
core-ftrace.c		core-ftrace.c
core-ftrace.h		core-ftrace.h
core-hash.c		core-hash.c
core-hash.h		core-hash.h
core-helper.c		core-helper.c
core-ignite-cpu.c		core-ignite-cpu.c
core-io-priority.c		core-io-priority.c
core-io-priority.h		core-io-priority.h
core-io-uring.c		core-io-uring.c
core-job.c		core-job.c
core-killpid.c		core-killpid.c
core-klog.c		core-klog.c
core-limit.c		core-limit.c
core-log.c		core-log.c
core-madvise.c		core-madvise.c
core-mincore.c		core-mincore.c
core-mlock.c		core-mlock.c
core-mmap.c		core-mmap.c
core-module.c		core-module.c
core-mounts.c		core-mounts.c
core-mwc.c		core-mwc.c
core-net.c		core-net.c
core-net.h		core-net.h
core-nt-store.h		core-nt-store.h
core-out-of-memory.c		core-out-of-memory.c
core-parse-opts.c		core-parse-opts.c
core-perf-event.c		core-perf-event.c
core-perf.c		core-perf.c
core-perf.h		core-perf.h
core-personality.c		core-personality.c
core-pragma.h		core-pragma.h
core-put.h		core-put.h
core-sched.c		core-sched.c
core-setting.c		core-setting.c
core-shim.c		core-shim.c
core-smart.c		core-smart.c
core-smart.h		core-smart.h
core-target-clones.h		core-target-clones.h
core-thermal-zone.c		core-thermal-zone.c
core-thermal-zone.h		core-thermal-zone.h
core-thrash.c		core-thrash.c
core-thrash.h		core-thrash.h
core-time.c		core-time.c
core-try-open.c		core-try-open.c
core-vecmath.h		core-vecmath.h
core-vmstat.c		core-vmstat.c
kernel-coverage.sh		kernel-coverage.sh
stress-access.c		stress-access.c
stress-af-alg-defconfigs.h		stress-af-alg-defconfigs.h
stress-af-alg.c		stress-af-alg.c
stress-affinity.c		stress-affinity.c
stress-aio-linux.c		stress-aio-linux.c
stress-aio.c		stress-aio.c
stress-alarm.c		stress-alarm.c
stress-apparmor.c		stress-apparmor.c
stress-atomic.c		stress-atomic.c
stress-bad-altstack.c		stress-bad-altstack.c
stress-bad-ioctl.c		stress-bad-ioctl.c
stress-bigheap.c		stress-bigheap.c
stress-bind-mount.c		stress-bind-mount.c
stress-binderfs.c		stress-binderfs.c
stress-branch.c		stress-branch.c
stress-brk.c		stress-brk.c
stress-bsearch.c		stress-bsearch.c
stress-cache.c		stress-cache.c
stress-cap.c		stress-cap.c
stress-chattr.c		stress-chattr.c
stress-chdir.c		stress-chdir.c
stress-chmod.c		stress-chmod.c
stress-chown.c		stress-chown.c
stress-chroot.c		stress-chroot.c
stress-clock.c		stress-clock.c
stress-clone.c		stress-clone.c
stress-close.c		stress-close.c

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