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Asked: 2026-05-23T21:08:01+00:00

This question is purely theoretical. I was wondering whether the Linux source code could

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This question is purely theoretical.

I was wondering whether the Linux source code could have memory leaks, and how they debugged it, considering that it is Linux, after all, that deals with each program’s memory?

I obviously understand that Linux, being written in C, has to deal itself with malloc and free. What I don’t understand is how we measure the operating system’s memory leaks.

Note that this question is not Linux-specific; it also addresses the corresponding issues in Windows and MacOS X (darwin).

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  1. Editorial Team

    Quite frequently non-mainstream drivers and the staging tree has memory leaks. Follow the LKML and you can see occasional fixes for mistakes in the networking code for corner cases handling lists of SKBs.

    Due to the nature of the kernel most work is code review and refactoring, but work is ongoing to make more tools:

    http://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/Google_Summer_of_Code#kmemtrace_-_Kernel_Memory_Profiler

    In certain cases you can use frameworks like Usermode Linux and then use conventional tools like Valgrind to attempt to peer into the running code:

    http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net/

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