Scenario:

You have a container named cpu_test running from the image myapp:cpu that performs CPU-intensive computations. When monitoring with docker stats, the container regularly spikes to 150-200% CPU usage, consuming multiple CPU cores and impacting other services on the host.

Task:

Update the container configuration to limit CPU usage so that docker stats shows the cpu_test container consistently using less than 60% CPU during validation; You need to assign 500m CPU for that.

Step 1: Watch CPU usage over time

timeout 10 docker stats cpu_test

Monitor for 10 seconds to see the spike pattern.

Step 2: Check container details

docker inspect cpu_test | grep -i cpu

See current CPU configuration (likely no limits set).

Step 3: Remove the container

docker rm -f cpu_test

Remove it so we can recreate with new flags.

Step 4: Restart container with CPU limit (--cpus flag)

docker run -d --name cpu_test --cpus=0.5 myapp:cpu

Limit to 50% of one CPU core (well under the 60% target).

Step 5: Monitor CPU usage with the limit

timeout 15 docker stats cpu_test

Watch for 15 seconds to verify CPU stays under 60%.