Hunting Memory Leaks in Java & memory problems notes

Good article about general approach of finding leaks
http://www.toptal.com/java/hunting-memory-leaks-in-java

1) In every jvm should be enabled following flags, to gather statistics:

-XX:-PrintGCDetails 
-XX:+PrintGCTimeStamps-Xloggc:gc.log or -verbose:gc

2) To read gc logs https://github.com/chewiebug/GCViewer
metrics:
throughout - the percent that your application works vs garbage collector
largest pause - the pause when gc works and your app is not responding

3) most used ways to solve memory problems
a) solve memory leaks problems, see article
b) Xmxn - enlarge heap size
c) change garbage collector algo, in general about GC's
Parallel GC - bad largest pause but good throughout
CMS - good pause but bad throughout
G1 - soon will be default, should be used from jvm8+, for jvm 7 still not so good


sometimes:
-XX:OldSize - the amout of data alive after Major GC, should be:
   for Parallel GC  XX:OldSize = LiveSet * (1,2 - 1,5)
   for CMS GC XX:OldSize = LiveSet * 2
^where LiveSet - amout of memory after Major GC

More links: 
More about verbosegc

Dump heap to file when java.lang.OutOfMemoryError is throw 
-XX:+HeapDumpOnOutOfMemoryError and use Heap Analyzer tool

Notes in Russian about PermGen

A step-by-step approach toward high quality OutOfMemoryError analysis (Vladimir Sitnikov, Russia)
GcView binary 

Никита Липский, Владимир Иванов — JVM: краткий курс общей анатомии