Linux › Section H · Processes and resource utilization › Topic H.3
Tracing program execution and system calls
When a program dies at start-up or hangs without a useful message, ps and lsof have little to show. strace and ltrace let you watch every request the program makes, and the answer is usually in plain sight.
In this topic
- Why trace a program?
- System calls, the C library and errno
- Running a command under strace
- Options that tame the output
- Worked example: a missing configuration file
- Worked example: what is a hung process waiting for?
- Counting calls with strace -c
- ltrace: watching library calls
- Permissions and overhead
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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