34
submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by communism@lemmy.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml

Is there a daemon that will kill any processes using above a specified % of CPU? I'm having issues where a system is sometimes grinding to a halt due to high CPU usage. I'm not sure what process is doing it (can't htop as system is frozen); ideally I'd like a daemon that automatically kills processes using more than a given % of CPU, and then logs what process it was for me to look back on later. Alternatively something that just logs processes that use a given % of CPU so that I may look back on it after restarting the system.

The system is being used as a server so it's unattended a lot of the time; it's not a situation where I did something on the computer and then CPU usage went up.

Edit: Thanks to the comments pointing out it might be a memory leak instead of CPU usage that's the issue. I've set up earlyoom which seems to have diagnosed the problem as a clamd memory leak. I've been running clamd on the server for ages without problems so might be the result of an update; I've disabled it for now, and will keep monitoring the situation to see if earlyoom catches anything else, or if the problem keeps occurring I'll try some of the other tools people have suggested.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] communism@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 days ago
[-] CallMeAl@piefed.zip 4 points 2 days ago

There's a old school tool call sar which can help you figure out what is causing the performance issues. Found a recent guide: Mastering sar in Linux: A Comprehensive Guide

this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2026
34 points (100.0% liked)

Linux

62524 readers
425 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS