Use stress-ng with a fixed time limit, a deliberate worker count, and a memory ceiling to put a controlled load on a Linux or Unix system. Start with a modest test, monitor temperatures and memory pressure, and treat the output as diagnostic—not as a portable performance benchmark.
What stress-ng can tell you
stress-ng drives workloads intended to expose problems such as thermal overruns and operating-system bugs under heavy load. Its manual cautions that it is not a precise benchmark suite; bogo-operation figures are useful for interpreting a particular run, not for comparing performance across machines. Those figures can vary with the stress-ng release, compiler, libraries, and system-call performance. The stress-ng manual explains both the tool’s purpose and this limitation.
The CPU and VM stressors exercise different things. CPU workers perform compute workloads; VM workers allocate and access memory to create memory pressure. A test can reveal instability or resource pressure, but a successful run does not prove that a system is error-free under every workload.
Choose a safe test size
Before starting, check how many CPUs and how much memory are available, stop unrelated heavy workloads, and choose a fixed duration. Leave enough memory for the operating system and other essential processes. Begin with a short, moderate run rather than immediately allocating nearly all available RAM or loading every CPU.
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- Keep the first run bounded so you can observe the machine and stop if temperatures, responsiveness, or memory pressure become concerning.
- Use
--vm-bytesto set an explicit memory amount or percentage. The amount is aggregate across all VM workers. - Avoid running stress-ng as root for a low-memory test unless you understand the consequences: on Linux, root use changes OOM scoring and can make stressors harder to kill.
Run a moderate CPU and memory test
This example runs four CPU workers and one VM worker, limits the VM allocation to 1 GiB, and stops after 60 seconds:
stress-ng --cpu 4 --vm 1 --vm-bytes 1G --timeout 60s --verify --metrics-brief--verify checks computations or memory contents only for stressors that implement verification. --metrics-brief provides a shorter metrics summary. The 1 GiB setting is the total allocation across VM workers; with one worker, it is assigned to that worker.
Adjust CPU load
The value passed to --cpu controls the number of CPU workers. Zero selects the configured CPUs, a negative value selects online CPUs, a percentage selects a share, and a positive integer starts that many workers. For example, --cpu 4 starts four workers.
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Use all configured CPUs
stress-ng --cpu 0 --cpu-method all --timeout 20mThis selects all configured CPUs and cycles through the available CPU methods for 20 minutes. The duration is an example, not a required minimum; shorten it for initial diagnosis and monitor the system throughout.
Cap load on online CPUs
stress-ng --cpu -1 --cpu-method all --timeout 1h --cpu-load 90This selects all online CPUs and sets the CPU load target to 90 percent. A load cap reduces the intended CPU utilization, but it does not eliminate thermal or system-stability risks.
Increase memory pressure gradually
Use --vm N to select the number of VM workers and --vm-bytes to set their combined allocation. A percentage is based on available memory and is shared among the workers: for example, eight workers with --vm-bytes 80% allocate 80 percent in total, or about 10 percent per worker.
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stress-ng --vm 2 --vm-bytes 50% --timeout 5m --verify --metrics-briefThis uses two VM workers with a combined target of 50 percent of available memory for five minutes. Increase the allocation only after observing the effect of the smaller run. High memory pressure can cause swapping, severe slowdown, or OOM termination.
The upstream README also documents a much heavier diagnostic example: two VM workers using 95 percent of available memory, with verification, logging, kernel-log checks, VM statistics every 10 seconds, and a one-hour timeout. That scale is appropriate only in a controlled environment where resource exhaustion and thermal effects are acceptable. See the stress-ng README.
Set the duration and monitor the run
--timeout (or -t) accepts durations in seconds, minutes, hours, or days, such as 60s, 5m, or 1h. The timeout sends SIGALRM, but cleanup or an uninterruptible system call can delay final termination. Do not assume the process will always exit at the exact second specified.
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When supported, --vmstat S prints system statistics at interval S, including process, memory, paging, block I/O, interrupt, context-switch, disk, and CPU data. Its support is incomplete on various Unix systems, and some stress-ng functionality is Linux-only. Check the manual for the behavior available on your operating system. The stress-ng manual documents the options and platform qualifications.
During and after the run, note the exit status, elapsed time, memory use or metrics, temperatures, and kernel-log messages where available. This gives you useful context for interpreting a failure or an unexpectedly heavy system response.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Interpret results and stop safely
An exit status of 0 indicates success. Statuses 1–7 indicate problems such as invalid options or resource errors, failed or unimplemented stressors, unexpected signals, or bogo-operation metrics that cannot be trusted. Consult the manual for the meaning of the specific status and inspect the run output rather than treating every nonzero result as a hardware fault.
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To stop a run manually, press Ctrl-C. The manual describes signal handling for SIGINT, SIGHUP, and SIGALRM as terminating stressors and cleaning up temporary files and shared-memory segments. Root use can change Linux OOM scoring, so do not rely on the system’s OOM killer as your stop mechanism when stressing memory.
Version and platform context
Documentation packaged for Debian identifies stress-ng version 0.22.00-2 in 2026; Debian Manpages records the documentation as last updated on 2026-08-29 and converted to HTML on 2026-09-20. Your installed version and supported options may differ, so consult its local manual when an option is unavailable. Debian Manpages: stress-ng
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