How to inspect and diagnose MySQL heap memory fragmentation and excessive memory use (Doc ID 2798321.1)

Last updated on FEBRUARY 28, 2023

Applies to:

Goal

MySQL for Linux is built using GLIBC and uses the default GLIBC memory allocator.  In some workloads the GLIBC memory allocator can cause excessive memory usage because of fragmentation.  Third party memory allocators such as jemalloc and tcmalloc do not seem to exhibit this shortcoming.

The objective is to peek into the GLIBC memory allocator and try to gather information that can help inform a diagnosis which determines if fragmentation is the cause of excessive memory usage.

Solution

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