Introduction

Stresses a specific amount of memory using ongoing memory allocations, reads and writes.

Usage

Note that this can cause systems to trip the Linux Kernel OOM killer without enough physical or swap Memory.

This action uses stress-ng to stress the Memory. In addition to memory consumption, due to the ongoing memory allocations, reads, and writes, CPU usage will also increase. If not enough CPU is available, then this attack might fail to allocate all specified Memory.

If you want to fill up the Memory without stressing the CPU, use the Fill Memory action.

Use Cases

• Test the system's ability to handle memory spikes.
• Observe the system's behavior when it runs out of memory or the memory bandwidth is exhausted.

Parameters

Parameter	Description	Default
Duration	How long should memory be wasted?	30s
Load on Host Memory	How much of the total memory should be used to stress the memory?	80%
Fail on OOM Kill	Should it be treated as a failure when the stress-ng process was oomkilled?	False