Inducing Low Memory Conditions

Testing under stress and load conditions are important for every application. Having empirical knowledge of what the breaking point is for any computer hosting an application helps you to plan for such an occaision, as well as giving you an idea of what sort of load the machine can handle before it buckles. If you're aware that having 1000 simultaneous users on a web application you've built is the down-hill tipping point for failure, and you're seeing peak usage at 1200 users a day, you know that it's time to either get another machine or tweak the code to allow for more users on the machine.

Recently I did some searching for a program that would induce low memory conditions on my linux box. I wanted to do some stress testing on a web app while the machine was low in memory. Unfortunately I couldn't find a decent program, so I wrote one! Since I've found that "tutorial" sites are very popular (I visit them myself daily), I thought posting this might be good for the blog. And what's good for the blog, is good for Ryan.


#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>

#define MEGABYTE 1024*1024
#define LOWMEMORY 30000

/*
 * SUMMARY: Induce low memory conditions by allocating memory in 1 MB chunks and checking free memory until there is only LOWMEMORY KB of free memory left
 * REQUIREMENTS: Must be run on a Linux machine, and the LOWMEMORY number should be in KB
 * AUTHOR: Ryan Gerard, ryan dot gerard at gmail dot com
 */

int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
     void *myblock = NULL;
     int count = 0;
     int freeMem = 0;

     //Allocate memory in 1 MB chunks as long as the free mem can be found and the free mem is greater than LOWMEMORY KB
     while( (freeMem = getFreeMem()) != -1 && freeMem > LOWMEMORY)
     {
          myblock = (void *) malloc(MEGABYTE);
          if (!myblock) break;
          memset(myblock,1, MEGABYTE);
          printf("Currently allocating %d MB\n",++count);
          printf("Free mem is %d KB\n", freeMem);
     }

     //Print out amount of free memory left
     printf("%d free memory left\n", getFreeMem());
     exit(0);
}

/*
 * Parse the output of 'vmstat' to determine the amount of free memory left on the system
 */
int getFreeMem()
{
     FILE *readFile;
     char string[256];
     int cnt = 0;
     int freeMem = -1;

     //Output memory information to file tmpfile
     system("vmstat -a 1 1 > tmpfile");

     //Open the file for reading
     if ( (readFile = fopen("tmpfile", "r")) != NULL )
     {
          //Get the third line of text from the file
          while( fgets(string, 256, readFile) && cnt < 2 )
               cnt++

          cnt = 0;
          char* token = strtok(string, " ");
          while(token != NULL && cnt < 3)
          {
               token = strtok(NULL, " ");
               cnt++;
          }

          //Convert to an integer to return
          freeMem = atoi(token);

          //Close the file
          fclose(readFile);
     }

     return freeMem;
}