How To Install heaptrack on Kali Linux

In this tutorial we learn how to install heaptrack on Kali Linux. heaptrack is heap memory profiler for Linux

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install heaptrack on Kali Linux.

What is heaptrack

heaptrack is:

Heap memory usage profiler. It uses LD_PRELOAD to track all calls to the core memory allocation functions and logs these occurrences. Additionally, backtraces are obtained and logged. It can also generate a historigram of allocation sizes over the number of calls. Heaptrack measures the following:

  • Heap memory consumption (like Massif).
  • Number of calls to allocation functions (like callgrind).
  • Total amount of memory allocated, ignoring deallocations.
  • Leaked memory (like memcheck).

Heaptrack is notable for it’s ability to attach to running processes, for consuming substantially less memory than Valgrind, and for not reducing an application’s interactivity as much as Valgrind does. Heaptrack is useful for debugging memory leaks and memory ballooning.

The package contains the command line tools.

There are three methods to install heaptrack on Kali Linux. We can use apt-get, apt and aptitude. In the following sections we will describe each method. You can choose one of them.

Install heaptrack Using apt-get

Update apt database with apt-get using the following command.

sudo apt-get update

After updating apt database, We can install heaptrack using apt-get by running the following command:

sudo apt-get -y install heaptrack

Install heaptrack Using apt

Update apt database with apt using the following command.

sudo apt update

After updating apt database, We can install heaptrack using apt by running the following command:

sudo apt -y install heaptrack

Install heaptrack Using aptitude

If you want to follow this method, you might need to install aptitude on Kali Linux first since aptitude is usually not installed by default on Kali Linux. Update apt database with aptitude using the following command.

sudo aptitude update

After updating apt database, We can install heaptrack using aptitude by running the following command:

sudo aptitude -y install heaptrack

How To Uninstall heaptrack on Kali Linux

To uninstall only the heaptrack package we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get remove heaptrack

Uninstall heaptrack And Its Dependencies

To uninstall heaptrack and its dependencies that are no longer needed by Kali Linux, we can use the command below:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove heaptrack

Remove heaptrack Configurations and Data

To remove heaptrack configuration and data from Kali Linux we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y purge heaptrack

Remove heaptrack configuration, data, and all of its dependencies

We can use the following command to remove heaptrack configurations, data and all of its dependencies, we can use the following command:

sudo apt-get -y autoremove --purge heaptrack

Dependencies

heaptrack have the following dependencies:

References

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install heaptrack package on Kali Linux using different package management tools: apt, apt-get and aptitude.