How to Diagnose Linux Server Memory Leaks

Linux Server Admin with Fexingo: Sysadmin, Bash, and Server Engineering · Jun 9, 2026 · 7m · transcript

Memory leaks on Linux servers can silently degrade performance until a process is killed or the system crashes. In this episode, Lucas and Luna walk through a real-world scenario: a Node.js web server that slowly consumes memory over days. They explain how to use tools like 'top', 'ps', '/proc/meminfo', 'smem', and 'valgrind' to identify the offending process, measure memory growth, and trace the leak to its source. They also cover practical prevention strategies, including memory limits with systemd and cgroups, and monitoring with a simple cron script. No theory without practice — listeners…