Install memtester with Homebrew, apk, apt, dnf, MacPorts, Nix, pacman

Project links

• Homepage
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• memtester

Project history

The upstream README credits the original source to Simon Kirby in 1999, version 2 to Charles Cazabon in 1999, notes that version 3 was not publicly released, and describes version 4 as a 2004 rewrite by Cazabon. The rewrite focused on replacing hacky earlier code, improving portability, and making the tester fully 64-bit aware.

The project page says memtester is portable across 32- and 64-bit Unix-like systems, including unusual proprietary Unix systems and Mac OS X. The 4.x changelog shows steady maintenance from the 2004 rewrite through 2024, with changes for 64-bit offsets, physical-address testing, portability fixes, compiler compatibility, and hardware-developer use cases.

Adoption history

memtester became a standard small system-utility package because it solves a practical diagnostic problem without needing a boot disk. The official page says prebuilt executables are included with or available for many operating systems and mentions Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora/DAG packages, NetBSD ports, MacPorts, and Solaris/SunOS sources; the batch input additionally lists apk, Homebrew, Debian, Fedora, MacPorts, Nix, Arch, Ubuntu, and zypper package names.

How it is used

The basic invocation is `memtester <memory> [runs]`, usually as root so pages can be locked with `mlock`. The man page warns that unlocked testing is slower and less effective, that users must choose a safe allocation size, and that overcommitting memory can make a system unusable or trigger an out-of-memory killer.

Hardware developers can use `-p` with an optional `-d` device to test a physical memory region mapped through `/dev/mem` or another device, and newer releases include options such as `-u` for uncached memory semantics on some systems. `MEMTESTER_TEST_MASK` can limit which tests run.

Why package nerds care

memtester is a classic sysadmin package: tiny C source, no elaborate build system, broad Unix portability, a man page, and a job that is easiest to trust when installed from the system package manager. It is also valuable to embedded and hardware bring-up workflows where userspace physical-memory testing is useful.

Timeline

• 1999: Original source by Simon Kirby; version 2 copyright by Charles Cazabon.
• 2004-08-07: memtester 4.0.0 rewrite released for cleaner code, portability, and 64-bit awareness.
• 2009-07-23: memtester 4.1.0 adds physical-region testing with `-p`.
• 2012-06-09: memtester 4.3.0 adds alternate device mapping and MEMTESTER_TEST_MASK.
• 2024-12-16: memtester 4.7.1 fixes stricter C23/gcc-15 compile compatibility.

Related projects

• memtester is related to boot-time memory testers and hardware diagnostic tools, but its niche is userspace Unix testing. It is commonly packaged alongside other low-level system utilities rather than developer profilers.

Sources

• https://pyropus.ca/software/memtester/
• https://pyropus.ca/software/memtester/old-versions/
• https://pyropus.ca/software/memtester/old-versions/memtester-4.7.1.tar.gz
• source_facts.package-manager-url