Pause first 10, top cpu using programs
 

How would I pause all top 10 cpu cycle using programs for 2 seconds?

@ Reply
 

Hi Find,

What exactly are you trying to do? Can you explain it with the help of an example?

Hi T3RM1NVT0R, I am trying to do the following:

1. Find which programs are using the cpu the most, ranked from greatest use to least use
2. Ignore all but the top 10
3. issue some type of pause command to those top 10
4. wait 2 seconds
5. issue some type of resume command

I am guessing this would use bash, top, and grep, but I'm not sure how exactly.

Well, using this http://linux.die.net/man/1/top I'd start with something like
then parse the results.
You'd need to ensure you don't stop anything to do with the OS itself ...

Why do you need to do this?

How do I ensure this? Other than making sure I don't pause anything started by the super-user, what else do I check?

I need this to deal with run away programs. Normally CPU on-demand is fine for dealing with programs, heat, and various binary blob programs which I have to work with. But sometimes stuff goes into 'oh I need to take up all the processing time on nothing' loop and the result is a system lockup (and potential fire hazard). This would be a solution to that, and could be run by sensors.