Messages in this thread | | | Date | Mon, 20 Dec 1999 12:47:31 +0100 | From | Joerg Beyer <> | Subject | Q: how to be sure if it is a kernelspace mem leak? |
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Hi,
I have a question conerning a memory leak. I _think_ it is in the kernel space but I am not sure how to prove this. A few days ago I wrote a little program and while I was in the developing cycle of edit -> compile -> run, I found that free memory decreased. It is a little programm, starting some thread and in the thread opening a file, close it, unlink it. Some variables are locked with pthread semaphores. Ok, this is not very exciting. Since the program runs only a few seconds, I did several time the following: cat /proc/meminfo && ./prg && cat /proc/meminfo The free memory decreased. To get some more confidence I let the above loop run some time and checked: the memory decreased approx linear to number of threads and how often I run the program. I even did this in runlevel 1.
Ok, I remembered that there should be a race in open and since this is a MP machine it could be the cause of the memleak.
My real question is more fundamental: how can I prove that I triggered a kernel memory leak? Is cat /proc/meminfo && ./prg && cat /proc/meminfo sufficient enough?
From my understanding a userspace program can have as many memory leaks as it likes, but if the program terminates all memory is free'd again. [I am aware that this will not cover sys V shared memory, but my little program does not use it. It still uses pthread semaphores.]
thanks in advance Joerg -- Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
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