process-map is a graphical utility that visualises the virtual memory layout of a running Linux process. It presents the process’s address space as a two-dimensional map, showing where executable code, shared libraries and other memory regions are located.
The software was developed primarily as an educational tool. Its purpose is to help users understand how a process occupies virtual memory and how its threads move between different parts of the address space during execution.
It is important to distinguish process-map from a conventional memory profiler. The program samples thread instruction pointers and displays their locations, but it does not measure CPU time, memory allocation frequency or whether a thread is actively performing useful work.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Displays the virtual address space of a selected Linux process as an interactive two-dimensional map.
- Visualises individual threads as moving dots positioned at their sampled instruction pointers.
- Shows public symbols from executable files and shared libraries, helping identify the code regions occupied by different functions.
- Supports zooming with the mouse wheel and panning by dragging the map.
- Allows a particular task to be selected from a list, restricting the displayed thread markers to that task.
- Uses Linux ptrace facilities to inspect thread execution addresses, requiring appropriate privileges to access the target process.
- Uses raylib for graphical rendering and can be compiled directly from its source repository.
Website: github.com/arkanis/process-map
Support:
Developer: Stephan Soller
License: MIT License
process-map is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Process Memory Tools | |
|---|---|
| ps_mem | Accurately reports memory usage of programs |
| pscircle | Visualizes Linux processes in a form of radial tree |
| psrecord | Record the CPU and memory activity of a process |
| smem2 | Reports on memory usage on Linux systems |
| process-mem | Display memory used by processes |
| process-map | Visualize the virtual memory of a process |
| Smemstat | Reports the physical memory usage |
| mstat | Measure memory usage of a program over time |
| alram | Helps when available memory is below threshold, with optional task killer |
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