This library was written to detect memory leaks in any application by preloading it.

LD_PRELOAD='/usr/local/lib/libmemleak.so' ./a.out

Possibly you'll need to preload libbfd and libdl too, so use LD_PRELOAD='/usr/local/lib/libmemleak.so /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libbfd.so'.

After starting the application, connect to it by running memleak_control, provided in the package. Type 'help' on its command prompt.

$ memleak_control
libmemleak> help
help     : Print this help.
start    : Erase all intervals and start recording the first interval.
stop     : Stop recording.
restart  : Start a new interval. Keep, and possibly combine, previous intervals.
delete   : Delete the oldest interval.
stats    : Print overview of backtrace with highest leak probability.
stats N  : Automatically print stats every N seconds (use 0 to turn off).
restart M: Automatically restart every N * M stats.
list N   : When printing stats, print only the first N backtraces.
dump N   : Print backtrace number N.
libmemleak> start
Auto restart interval is 6 * 10 seconds.

When using this on the hello test program provided in the package, the output, after a couple of minutes, will look something like this:

hello: Now: 287;        Backtraces: 77;         allocations: 650036;    total memory: 83,709,180 bytes.
backtrace 44 (value_n: 104636.00); [ 178, 238>(  60): 25957 allocations (1375222 total,  1.9%), size 3311982; 432.62 allocations/s, 55199 bytes/s
backtrace 44 (value_n: 104636.00); [  55, 178>( 123): 52722 allocations (2793918 total,  1.9%), size 6734135; 428.63 allocations/s, 54749 bytes/s
backtrace 41 (value_n: 58296.00); [ 178, 238>(  60): 14520 allocations (1382814 total,  1.1%), size 1860716; 242.00 allocations/s, 31011 bytes/s
backtrace 41 (value_n: 58296.00); [  55, 178>( 123): 29256 allocations (2794155 total,  1.0%), size 3744938; 237.85 allocations/s, 30446 bytes/s

Showing two intervals here: from 55 seconds after start till 178 seconds after start, and a second interval between 178 and 238 seconds. The size of each interval is shown between brackets for convenience (123 and 60 seconds respectively).

The number of not-freed allocations is printed next with the total number of allocations done in that interval and the percentage of non-freed allocations between brackets. Finally the total amount of leaked memory in bytes, and the number of leaks in allocations and bytes per second is given.

As you can see in this example, backtrace 44 leaks about twice as much as backtrace 41. In fact, backtrace 41 doesn't really leak at all (it just naturally causes the heap to grow in the beginning), but backtrace 44 does (deliberately) have a bug that causes leaking on top of that.

We can print both backtraces from memleak_control with the commands,

libmemleak> dump 41
 #0  00007f5ab45dc860  in malloc
 #1  0000563e4f6b4592  in do_work(int) at /home/carlo/projects/libmemleak/libmemleak/src/hello.cc:157
 #2  0000563e4f6b4070  in thread_entry0(void*) at /home/carlo/projects/libmemleak/libmemleak/src/hello.cc:19
 #3  00007f5ab3e176db  in start_thread at /build/glibc-OTsEL5/glibc-2.27/nptl/pthread_create.c:463
 #4  00007f5ab3b3988f  in ?? at /build/glibc-OTsEL5/glibc-2.27/misc/../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/x86_64/clone.S:97
libmemleak> dump 44
 #0  00007f5ab45dc860  in malloc
 #1  0000563e4f6b4592  in do_work(int) at /home/carlo/projects/libmemleak/libmemleak/src/hello.cc:157
 #2  0000563e4f6b408d  in thread_entry1(void*) at /home/carlo/projects/libmemleak/libmemleak/src/hello.cc:20
 #3  00007f5ab3e176db  in start_thread at /build/glibc-OTsEL5/glibc-2.27/nptl/pthread_create.c:463
 #4  00007f5ab3b3988f  in ?? at /build/glibc-OTsEL5/glibc-2.27/misc/../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/x86_64/clone.S:97

So apparently the leak is caused by a call from thread_entry1().

The library does not print any memory leak stats by default: one MUST connect to it with memleak_control and give the command start to begin recording an interval.

To print an overview of backtraces with highest leak probability, give the command stats. To stop recording give the command stop. The number of backtraces printed (starting with the one with the highest leak probability) can be controlled with the command list N where N is the number of backtraces to print each stats.

Backtraces are reported with an integer number (N). To dump the actual stacktrace use the command dump N. Backtraces are also written to a file memleak_backtraces in the current directory every time a stats command is executed, so all backtraces are available at all times, even if the program crashes or halts.

Printing stats can be automated, as if the command stats is given every N seconds, with the command stats N.

Restarting an interval can be automated, as if the command restart is given even N * M seconds, with the command restart M. Note that when a restart is performed, a new interval is started but the old intervals are kept. Older intervals however are combined (made into a larger interval), growing exponentially in size the older they are. In virtually all cases, when you run an application with libmemleak and started recording, then all that is needed is to do whatever causes the leak for a while, with an N * M seconds (see below) being a bit smaller than the period over which the leak should be detectable (that is, not too large so that pre- and/or initialization allocations might "confuse" libmemleak, and also not too short so that the amount leaked disappears in the noise of normal allocations), and the memory leak backtrace will be the one that is reported at the top.

Since libmemleak pushes older intervals to the bottom (you can delete them with the command delete) and combines intervals to make larger and larger ones, intervals being too short or too long should never be a problem really when the leak is continuous: at some point in time the leak should become clearly visible in a slowly increasing number of printed intervals.

Hence, you can just sit back and watch until you see the leak pop-up on the top.

In the case of the hello test program, the leak is detected immediately. Using stats 1 and restart 2 will show the correct backtrace after 2 seconds.

The following environment variables can be set to configure the library:

• LIBMEMLEAK_SOCKNAME : Path to the filename used for the UNIX socket that is used for communication between libmemleak.so and memleak_control. The default is "./memleak_sock".
• LIBMEMLEAK_STATS_INTERVAL : The (initial) time in seconds between printing memory leak stats. The default is 1 second. This value can be changed on the fly through memleak_control with the command stats N where N is a decimal value in seconds (or 0 to turn off printing of stats).
• LIBMEMLEAK_RESTART_MULTIPLIER : The (initial) restart multiplier. The default is 5. This value can be changed on the fly through memleak_control with the command restart M where M is a decimal value. The restart multiplier must be at least 2. It causes a new interval to be automatically started every N * M seconds, where N is the stats print interval (see LIBMEMLEAK_STATS_INTERVAL).