Glibc Installation

Although [libheap] does not require a glibc compiled with gdb debugging support and symbols, it functions best if you do use one. Without debug symbols you will need to supply the address of the main arena yourself.

On Ubuntu:

apt-get install libc6-dbg

On Fedora:

yum install yum-utils
debuginfo-install glibc

Or:

dnf install dnf-plugins-core
dnf debuginfo-install glibc

Libheap Installation

git clone https://github.com/cloudburst/libheap
pip3 install --user ./libheap/

You may need to add your pip user install location to your Python PATH afterwards so GDB can find it (depending on your setup). Change the python version to match whatever your system is running (pip3 show libheap to find the location).

echo "python import sys" >> ~/.gdbinit
echo "python sys.path.append('~/.local/lib/python3.4/site-packages/')" >> ~/.gdbinit

PEDA Conflict

If you are using PEDA (a gdb frontend), its buffering seems to conflict with heap printing so it is recommended to disable it.

Configuration

Edit libheap.cfg included in site-packages/libheap to set your desired glibc version. I have not added glibc version detection yet.

[Glibc]
version = 2.24

Learning Resources

I'd recommend installing shellphish's how2heap alongside this tool for learning ptmalloc internals.