Everyday system calls

Several syscalls are happening in our programs every time under our noses. We can trace these calls using the strace tool.

Tracing system calls

The strace tool might not come pre-installed on all Linux distributions, but it’s available in most official repositories. Here’s how to install it on some major distributions.

Debian (using APT): Run the following command:

apt-get install strace -y

Red Hat family (using DNF and YUM)

• When using yum, run the following command:

  yum install strace

• When using dnf, run this command:

  dnf install strace

Arch Linux (using Pacman): Run the following command:

pacman -S strace

Basic strace usage

The basic way to use strace is by calling the strace utility followed by the program’s name; for example:

strace ls

This will produce an output showing system calls, their arguments, and return values. For instance, the execve system call (https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2...