stressapptest
Google memory and hardware stress tester
TLDR
SYNOPSIS
stressapptest [-s seconds] [-M mbytes] [-m threads] [options]
DESCRIPTION
stressapptest (Stressful Application Test) is a memory and hardware verification tool developed by Google to find errors in memory subsystems, disk I/O, and other hardware components. It generates realistic high-load patterns that exercise the memory bus, cache hierarchy, and storage pathways to expose intermittent hardware faults.The tool allocates a configurable amount of memory and continuously writes data patterns, reads them back, and verifies correctness. This approach is effective at detecting ECC memory errors, faulty DIMM modules, memory controller issues, and thermal throttling problems. File I/O tests can be included to stress disk and storage controller hardware simultaneously.Stressapptest is particularly useful for qualifying new hardware, burn-in testing servers before production deployment, and diagnosing systems that exhibit intermittent crashes or data corruption under load.
PARAMETERS
-s SEC
Duration seconds.-M MB
Memory in MB.-m N
Number of memory copy threads.-C N
Number of CPU stress threads.-i N
Number of memory invert threads.-f FILE
Add a disk thread with tempfile.-d DEV
Add a direct write disk thread with block device (or file).-n IP
Add a network thread connecting to the specified IP address.-v LEVEL
Verbosity level.-l FILE
Log file.-W
Use warm copy (memory copy with cache warming).-A
Run in degraded mode on incompatible systems.
CAVEATS
Generates heat. May trigger failures. Use carefully on production.
HISTORY
stressapptest was developed by Google to stress test memory subsystems and find hardware errors.
