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Java Platform, Standard Edition Troubleshooting Guide
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2.7 Native Memory Tracking

The Native Memory Tracking (NMT) is a Java HotSpot VM feature that tracks internal memory usage for a Java HotSpot VM. For details about NMT scope, how to enable NMT, and other additional usage details, see Native Memory Tracking.

Since NMT doesn't track memory allocations by non-JVM code, you may have to use tools supported by the operating system to detect memory leaks in native code.

The following sections describe how to monitor VM internal memory allocations and diagnose VM memory leaks.

2.7.1 Use NMT to Detect a Memory Leak

Follow these steps to detect a memory leak.

  1. Start the JVM with summary or detail tracking using the command line option: -XX:NativeMemoryTracking=summary or -XX:NativeMemoryTracking=detail.

  2. Establish an early baseline - use NMT baseline feature to get a baseline to compare during development and maintenance by running: jcmd <pid> VM.native_memory baseline.

  3. Monitor memory changes using: jcmd <pid> VM.native_memory detail.diff.

  4. If the application leaks a small amount of memory, it make take a while to show up.

2.7.2 How to Monitor VM Internal Memory

Used with The jcmd Utility, Native Memory Tracking can be set up to monitor memory and ensure that an application does not start to use increasing amounts of memory during development or maintenance. See Table 2-1 for details about NMT memory categories.

The following sections describe how to get summary or detail data for NMT and describes how to interpret the sample output.

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