ramwise

Your memory's wise advisor - Intelligent RAM usage visualizer for Arch Linux

ramwise is a terminal-based RAM usage visualizer that goes beyond basic memory monitoring. It provides deep memory introspection, intelligent leak detection, and beautiful visualization all in a lightweight TUI application.

Features

• Deep Memory Introspection - See RSS, PSS, USS, shared/private breakdown per process
• Intelligent Insights - Rule-based analysis detects memory leaks, hogs, and anomalies
• Beautiful TUI - Modern interface with graphs, colors, and intuitive navigation
• Minimal Footprint - Written in Rust for maximum efficiency
• Real-time Updates - Live monitoring with configurable refresh rate
• Process Control - Stop (SIGTERM) or kill (SIGKILL) selected processes directly from the TUI

Snapshot exports

The collector exposes a versioned ExportSnapshot contract for integrations and future export formats. It uses wall-clock Unix milliseconds, explicit byte/count units, collector metadata, and capability markers. Runtime-only monotonic Instant values are intentionally not serialized; unavailable features remain explicit in the exported capability map.

Screenshots

Installation

From Source

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/Duckaet/ramwise
cd ramwise

# Build release binary
cargo build --release

# Install (optional)
sudo cp target/release/ramwise /usr/local/bin/

Usage

# Run with default settings (1s refresh, 1MB minimum RSS)
ramwise

# Custom refresh interval (500ms)
ramwise --interval 500

# Show all processes (including small ones)
ramwise --min-rss 0

# Disable smaps collection (faster but less detailed)
ramwise --no-smaps

# Enable debug logging
ramwise --debug

# Use light mode
ramwise -t light

Capture snapshots

Capture one JSON snapshot to stdout, or write JSON/CSV files without starting the TUI:

# Machine-readable JSON on stdout
ramwise --once > snapshot.json

# Refuse to overwrite existing files
ramwise --export-json snapshot.json --export-csv snapshot.csv

# Replace existing files explicitly
ramwise --export-json snapshot.json --force

# Include per-mapping details in the CSV and timestamp the filename
ramwise --export-csv capture.csv --export-details --export-timestamped

# Stream CSV to stdout
ramwise --export-csv -

Export failures and diagnostics are written to stderr; JSON and CSV payloads remain on stdout only when - is used.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Key	Action
j/k or ↑/↓	Navigate process list
Tab	Cycle focus between panels
Shift+Tab	Reverse cycle focus
s	Cycle sort mode (RSS/PSS/Private/Name/PID)
g	Go to top of list
G	Go to bottom of list
x	Send SIGTERM to selected process
X	Confirm and send SIGKILL to selected process
?	Toggle help overlay
q	Quit

Notes:

• SIGKILL requires confirmation in-app (Enter confirm, Esc cancel).
• Process control follows OS permissions; root-owned processes may return permission errors.

Process Control

ramwise now supports direct process signaling from the process list:

1. Select a process with j/k or ↑/↓.
2. Press x to send SIGTERM (graceful stop).
3. Press X to open kill confirmation, then:
   • Enter to send SIGKILL
   • Esc to cancel

Action results are shown as in-app status messages (success, warning, or error).

Configuration

Themes

ramwise includes built-in themes selectable via --theme or -t:

# Launch with dark theme (default)
ramwise -t dark

# Launch with light theme (Gruvbox Light)
ramwise -t light

Custom themes can be added to src/ui/theme.rs and registered in App::new (src/app.rs).

Layout Customization

Layout dimensions and panel splits can be customized in src/ui/layout.rs (Layout::new):

• header_height: Height of the top status bar.
• center_height: Minimum height of the main process/detail panels.
• bottom_height: Height of the insights panel.
• left_width_percent: Width percentage allocated to the process list.
• side_vertical_split_percent: Height percentage allocated to process details vs memory graph.
• invert_horizontal_split: Swap process list and side panels.
• invert_side_vertical_split: Swap detail view and trend graph.
• put_insights_on_top: Place the insights panel below the header instead of at the bottom.

Insight Rules

ramwise includes intelligent analysis rules:

Rule	Severity	Description
Memory Leak Detector	Warning/Critical	Detects consistent RSS growth patterns
Memory Hog	Warning	Flags processes using >30% of total RAM
Sudden Spike	Warning	Alerts on rapid memory increases (>100MB in 10s)
OOM Risk	Critical	Warns when system is at risk of OOM
Swap Pressure	Warning	Detects excessive swap usage
Fragmentation	Info	Identifies high VSS/RSS ratios
Cache Info	Info	Explains high page cache usage

Architecture

ramwise/
├── src/
│   ├── main.rs              # Entry point, async event loop
│   ├── app.rs               # Application state
│   ├── collector/           # Memory data collection from /proc
│   ├── analyzer/            # Rule engine and insights
│   ├── history/             # Time-series data buffer
│   ├── ui/                  # Ratatui TUI components
│   └── utils/               # Formatting utilities

Requirements

• Linux kernel 2.6.28+ (for /proc/[pid]/smaps_rollup)
• Terminal with color support

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.

Credits

Built with:

• Ratatui - TUI framework
• procfs - /proc filesystem parser
• Tokio - Async runtime