https://github.com/paypal/heap-dump-tool
Tool to sanitize data from Java heap dumps.
https://github.com/paypal/heap-dump-tool
Last synced: over 1 year ago
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Tool to sanitize data from Java heap dumps.
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/paypal/heap-dump-tool
- Owner: paypal
- License: apache-2.0
- Created: 2021-02-12T01:11:12.000Z (over 5 years ago)
- Default Branch: main
- Last Pushed: 2025-03-15T05:04:25.000Z (over 1 year ago)
- Last Synced: 2025-03-28T20:05:50.461Z (over 1 year ago)
- Language: Java
- Homepage:
- Size: 487 KB
- Stars: 121
- Watchers: 10
- Forks: 21
- Open Issues: 0
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
- Changelog: CHANGES.md
- License: LICENSE
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README
# Heap Dump Tool
[](https://maven-badges.herokuapp.com/maven-central/com.paypal/heap-dump-tool)
Heap Dump Tool can capture and, more importantly, sanitize sensitive data from Java heap dumps. Sanitization is accomplished
by replacing field values in the heap dump file with zero values. Heap dump can then be more freely shared freely and analyzed.
A typical scenario is when a heap dump needs to be sanitized before it can be given to another person or moved to a different
environment. For example, an app running in production environment may contain sensitive data (passwords, credit card
numbers, etc) which should not be viewable when the heap dump is copied to a development environment for analysis with a
graphical program.
---
## TOC
* [Examples](#examples)
* [Usage](#usage)
* [License](#license)
## Examples
The tool can be run in several ways depending on tool's packaging and where the target to-be-captured app is running.
#### [Jar] Capture sanitized heap dump manually
Simplest way to capture sanitized heap dump of an app is to run:
```
# capture plain heap dump of Java process with given pid
$ jcmd {pid} GC.heap_dump /path/to/plain-heap-dump.hprof
# then sanitize the heap dump
$ wget -O heap-dump-tool.jar https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/paypal/heap-dump-tool/1.3.0/heap-dump-tool-1.3.0-all.jar
$ java -jar heap-dump-tool.jar sanitize /path/to/plain-dump.hprof /path/to/sanitized-dump.hprof
```
#### [Jar] Capture sanitized heap dump of a containerized app
Suppose the tool is a packaged jar on the host, and the target app is running as the only Java process within a container.
Then, to capture sanitized heap dump of a containerized app, run:
```
# list docker containers
$ docker ps
CONTAINER ID IMAGE [...] NAMES
06e633da3494 registry.example.com/my-app:latest [...] my-app
# capture and sanitize
$ wget -O heap-dump-tool.jar https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/paypal/heap-dump-tool/1.3.0/heap-dump-tool-1.3.0-all.jar
$ java -jar heap-dump-tool.jar capture my-app
```
Note that a plain stack dump is also captured.
#### [Docker] Capture sanitized heap dump of a containerized app
Suppose the tool is a Docker image, and the target app is running as the only Java process within a container.
Then, to capture sanitized heap dump of another containerized app, run:
```
# list docker containers
$ docker ps
CONTAINER ID IMAGE [...] NAMES
06e633da3494 registry.example.com/my-app:latest [...] my-app
# capture and sanitize
$ docker run heapdumptool/heapdumptool capture my-app | bash
```
If the container runs multiple Java processes, pid can be specified:
```
# list docker containers
$ docker ps
CONTAINER ID IMAGE [...] NAMES
06e633da3494 registry.example.com/my-app:latest [...] my-app
# find pid
$ jps
$ ps aux
# capture and sanitize
$ docker run heapdumptool/heapdumptool capture my-app -p {pid} | bash
```
#### Sanitize hs_err* Java fatal error logs
To sanitize environment variables in hs_err* files, you can run:
```
# with java -jar
$ wget -O heap-dump-tool.jar https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/paypal/heap-dump-tool/1.3.0/heap-dump-tool-1.3.0-all.jar
$ java -jar heap-dump-tool.jar sanitize-hserr input-hs_err.log outout-hs_err.log
# Or, with docker
$ docker run heapdumptool/heapdumptool sanitize-hserr input-hs_err.log outout-hs_err.log | bash
```
### [Library] Embed within an app
To use it as a library and embed it within another app, you can declare it as dependency in maven:
```
com.paypal
heap-dump-tool
1.3.0
```
## Usage
```
java -jar heap-dump-tool.jar help
Usage: heap-dump-tool [-hV] [COMMAND]
Tool for capturing or sanitizing heap dumps
-h, --help Show this help message and exit.
-V, --version Print version information and exit.
Commands:
capture Capture sanitized heap dump of a containerized app
sanitize Sanitize a heap dump by replacing byte and char array contents
sanitize-hserr Sanitize fatal error log by censoring environment variable values
help Displays help information about the specified command
```
Additional usage for sub-commands can be found by running `help {sub-command}`. For example:
```
$ java -jar heap-dump-tool.jar help capture
Usage: heap-dump-tool sanitize [OPTIONS]
Sanitize a heap dump by replacing byte and char array contents
Input heap dump .hprof. File or stdin
Output heap dump .hprof. File, stdout, or stderr
-a, --tar-input Treat input as tar archive
-b, --buffer-size=
Buffer size for reading and writing
Default: 100MB
-d, --docker-registry=
docker registry hostname for bootstrapping heap-dump-tool docker image
-e, --exclude-string-fields=
String fields to exclude from sanitization. Value in com.example.MyClass#fieldName format
Default: java.lang.Thread#name,java.lang.ThreadGroup#name
-f, --force-string-coder-match=
Force strings coder values to match sanitizationText.coder value
Default: true
-s, --sanitize-byte-char-arrays-only
Sanitize byte/char arrays only
Default: true
-S, --sanitize-arrays-only
Sanitize arrays only
Default: false
-t, --text=
Sanitization text to replace with
Default: \0
-z, --zip-output Write zipped output
Default: false
```
## Whitepaper
See [whitepaper (pdf)](https://github.com/paypal/heap-dump-tool/blob/statics/whitepaper.pdf)
## License
Heap Dump Tool is Open Source software released under the Apache 2.0 license.