Tool for analyzing large Java heap dumps

Normally, what I use is ParseHeapDump.sh included within Eclipse Memory Analyzer and described here, and I do that onto one our more beefed up servers (download and copy over the linux .zip distro, unzip there). The shell script needs less resources than parsing the heap from the GUI, plus you can run it on your beefy server with more resources (you can allocate more resources by adding something like -vmargs -Xmx40g -XX:-UseGCOverheadLimit to the end of the last line of the script.For instance, the last line of that file might look like this after modification

./MemoryAnalyzer -consolelog -application org.eclipse.mat.api.parse "$@" -vmargs -Xmx40g -XX:-UseGCOverheadLimit

Run it like ./path/to/ParseHeapDump.sh ../today_heap_dump/jvm.hprof

After that succeeds, it creates a number of "index" files next to the .hprof file.

After creating the indices, I try to generate reports from that and scp those reports to my local machines and try to see if I can find the culprit just by that (not just the reports, not the indices). Here's a tutorial on creating the reports.

Example report:

./ParseHeapDump.sh ../today_heap_dump/jvm.hprof org.eclipse.mat.api:suspects

Other report options:

org.eclipse.mat.api:overview and org.eclipse.mat.api:top_components

If those reports are not enough and if I need some more digging (i.e. let's say via oql), I scp the indices as well as hprof file to my local machine, and then open the heap dump (with the indices in the same directory as the heap dump) with my Eclipse MAT GUI. From there, it does not need too much memory to run.

EDIT: I just liked to add two notes :

• As far as I know, only the generation of the indices is the memory intensive part of Eclipse MAT. After you have the indices, most of your processing from Eclipse MAT would not need that much memory.
• Doing this on a shell script means I can do it on a headless server (and I normally do it on a headless server as well, because they're normally the most powerful ones). And if you have a server that can generate a heap dump of that size, chances are, you have another server out there that can process that much of a heap dump as well.

First step: increase the amount of RAM you are allocating to MAT. By default it's not very much and it can't open large files.

In case of using MAT on MAC (OSX) you'll have file MemoryAnalyzer.ini file in MemoryAnalyzer.app/Contents/MacOS. It wasn't working for me to make adjustments to that file and have them "take". You can instead create a modified startup command/shell script based on content of this file and run it from that directory. In my case I wanted 20 GB heap:

./MemoryAnalyzer -vmargs -Xmx20g --XX:-UseGCOverheadLimit ... other params desired

Just run this command/script from Contents/MacOS directory via terminal, to start the GUI with more RAM available.

The accepted answer to this related question should provide a good start for you (if you have access to the running process, generates live jmap histograms instead of heap dumps, it's very fast):

Method for finding memory leak in large Java heap dumps

Most other heap analysers (I use IBM http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/heapanalyzer) require at least a percentage of RAM more than the heap if you're expecting a nice GUI tool.

Other than that, many developers use alternative approaches, like live stack analysis to get an idea of what's going on.

Although I must question why your heaps are so large? The effect on allocation and garbage collection must be massive. I'd bet a large percentage of what's in your heap should actually be stored in a database / a persistent cache etc etc.