I modified a tolerably leaking (about 40MB/day) Twisted server: when the new code was pushed, the memory leak became catastrophic (about 100MB/hr). We could tolerate 40MB/day, but the new code needs to be debugged. First, I reverted to the old version, that is leaking 40MB/day (The leak rate is actually proportional to the number of new connections per second, (which correlates with the CPU utilization of the process): if CPU as measured by $top jumps to >90%, the leak can accelerate to 50MB/hr) I took two steps to debug the leak: 1) Using guppy/heapy via manhole:
hp = hpy() h = hp.heap() h Partition of a set of 1157084 objects. Total size = 140911144 bytes. Index Count % Size % Cumulative % Kind (class / dict of class) 0 785798 68 48463680 34 48463680 34 str 1 7357 1 24660664 18 73124344 52 dict of service.TagSession 2 11735 1 12298280 9 85422624 61 dict of twisted.internet.base.DelayedCall 3 7377 1 7731096 5 93153720 66 dict of twisted.internet.tcp.Server 4 7375 1 7729000 5 100882720 72 dict of protocols.TagProtocol 5 30925 3 7174600 5 108057320 77 __builtin__.set 6 9193 1 6373336 5 114430656 81 dict (no owner) 7 15557 1 3396904 2 117827560 84 list 8 44833 4 3227976 2 121055536 86 types.BuiltinFunctionType 9 38142 3 3051360 2 124106896 88 types.MethodType <328 more rows. Type e.g. '_.more' to view.>
Note that the total size of all objects is 140911144 bytes The 1st, 3d and 4th items in this list show the actual number of connected clients. I wait for about 48 hrs, and then execute the same command, and I see approximately the same Total size, of 130MB. So the total size that Heapy sees via the manhole is stable, fluctuating around 140MB. The problem is that the total RSS size of the process visible by the OS is much larger, it is 871680KB = 851MB: $ps -o pid,vsz,rss,sz,size -p 11236 PID VSZ RSS SZ SZ 11236 1303180 871680 325795 1174388 It is this total RSS size that keeps leaking at 40MB per day. As far as I understand, this means that this is not the problem with purely Python code, since Heapy shows that the total size of all Python objects is more or less constant. Is this a correct assumption? 2) So now I turn to valgrind. I am no expert in using valgrind, so what I did was based only on general logic/rough guesses. Since I cannot run this under valgrind on a production machine due to performance reasons, I recompile python on the staging machine: ./configure --enable-shared --without-pymalloc --prefix=/nail/encap/python-2.6.4-valgrind I then follow the instructions in http://svn.python.org/projects/python/trunk/Misc/README.valgrind Then I run twistd process like this: valgrind --tool=memcheck --suppressions=/nail/sys/src/Python-2.6.4/Misc/valgrind-python.supp --leak-check=full --log-file=/tmp/valgrind.log /usr/local/bin/twistd --no_save --reactor=epoll --pidfile=logs/tagserv.pid --logfile=logs/tagserv.log --python=tagserv.py The memory for the process shown by the OS is now 5x normal, and the performance is about 5x worse, since it's running inside valgrind's synthetic CPU. Because this is done on the staging box where I cannot accurately reproduce the real load, the memory leaks from simulated load seen by $ps -o rss are pretty small, about 1 to 10MB. Still, I am interested in finding out what they are. Now I encounter the problems with my understanding of how to use valgrind. This may not be the appropriate list for this, but perhaps someone could recognize the problem. When I start the server, about 240 lines is written to valgrind log file, --log-file=/tmp/valgrind.log When I shut it down, it adds another 100 lines. No matter what I do in between, it always results in the log file with exactly 343 lines. I can have server runs with a leak of 1MB, or with 10MB, but in the end, I get pretty much the same log file. Moreover, when look for all lost memory reports: $grep lost valgrind.log.1 17,352 bytes in 31 blocks are possibly lost in loss record 49 of 62 203,312 bytes in 478 blocks are possibly lost in loss record 57 of 62 definitely lost: 0 bytes in 0 blocks. possibly lost: 220,664 bytes in 509 blocks. 64 bytes in 2 blocks are definitely lost in loss record 12 of 63 17,352 bytes in 31 blocks are possibly lost in loss record 50 of 63 203,824 bytes in 479 blocks are possibly lost in loss record 58 of 63 definitely lost: 64 bytes in 2 blocks. possibly lost: 221,176 bytes in 510 blocks. 47 bytes in 1 blocks are definitely lost in loss record 8 of 63 128 bytes in 4 blocks are definitely lost in loss record 16 of 63 584 (104 direct, 480 indirect) bytes in 2 blocks are definitely lost in loss record 26 of 63 1,008 bytes in 6 blocks are definitely lost in loss record 31 of 63 22,296 bytes in 41 blocks are possibly lost in loss record 50 of 63 183,368 bytes in 381 blocks are possibly lost in loss record 59 of 63 definitely lost: 1,287 bytes in 13 blocks. indirectly lost: 480 bytes in 20 blocks. possibly lost: 205,664 bytes in 422 blocks. If I add up all those numbers, I get less than 1MB. How do I track down the 10MB leak? Are there any alternative strategies in finding this leak?