# Limit CPU usage by process



## Patrick Bär (Jul 27, 2015)

Good evening, 

I was wondering, if there is a way to limit the maximum CPU used by a certain process or program?

For example, I would like xterm and thunderbird and vlc to start up and run with maximum speed, but keep firefox from hogging more and more CPU and heat up the system  (hence make the fans louder)

Can this be done somehow?


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## shepherdAZ (Jul 27, 2015)

Perhaps run each application as a specific user via sudo (e.g. user-firefox, user-tbird, user-xterm), then use Resource Limits to specify the pcpu constraints for each of those users - more details can be found in rctl(8) (note that you need to recompile your kernel with this option).


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