https://github.com/WuBingzheng/memleax

C
detects memory leak of running process

memleax

memleax detects memory leak of a running process.

memleax attachs a running process, hooks memory allocate/free APIs, records all memory blocks, and reports the blocks which live longer than 5 seconds (you can change this time by -e option) in real time.

So it is very convenient to use. There is no need to recompile the program or restart the target process. You run memleax to monitor the target process, wait the real-time memory leak report, and kill it (e.g. by Ctrl-C) to stop monitoring.

NOTE: Since memleax does not run along with the whole life of target process, it assumes the long-live memory blocks are memory leak. Downside is you have to set the expire threshold by -e option according to your scenarios; while the upside is the memory allocation for process initialization is skipped, besides of the convenience.

environment

• GNU/Linux, x86_64
• FreeBSD, amd64

usage

To detect a running process:

$ memleax [options] <target-pid>

then memleax monitors the target process, and will report memory leak in real time.

It stops monitoring and quits on:

• the target process quits,
• stop memleax (by SIGKILL or Ctrl-C), or
• the number of leaked memory blocks at one CallStack exceeds 1000 (change this threshold by -n option).

After quiting, it also gives statistics for the CallStacks with memory leak.