Strace

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Comment: Using strace
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strace -Ff -tt <program> <arguments> 2>&1 | tee strace.log strace -Ff -tt <program> <arguments> 2>&1 | tee strace-<program>.log
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 1. Attach the complete output from strace, contained in strace.log, in your bug report.  1. Attach the complete output from strace, contained in strace-<program>.log, in your bug report.

Sometimes, a program starts behaving errantly. It gives incorrect output on its input, it doesn't print anything at all, or even hangs. Under a Linux-based system, every userspace process has to interact with its environment through the kernel. And it does this by invoking system calls.

Strace is a utility that intercepts and logs these system calls. In this way, you can watch how a program interacts with the system, which is useful for tracking down behavioural issues.

Generation

  1. Make sure strace is installed. 

    apt-get install strace

  2. Start the program under control of strace: 

    strace -Ff -tt <program> <arguments> 2>&1 | tee strace-<program>.log
  3. The program will start. Perform any actions necessary to reproduce the crash

  4. Attach the complete output from strace, contained in strace-<program>.log, in your bug report.

Strace (last edited 2008-08-06 17:00:03 by localhost)