question about ptrace

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: jim ruxton <cinetron-uEvt2TsIf2EsA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org>
| 
| Hi I'm using Kubuntu gutsty and having problems with Ekiga ( a VOIP
| application) . I've been communicating with the developer and trying to
| figure out why. When I run it with debugging flag set ie 
| ekiga -d 4
| the developer says that the ptrace info isn't showing up.

I don't know what that means.  I would be very surprised if Ekiga uses
ptrace -- it is just too esoteric a feature.  strace, gdb, and UML
all use ptrace.

ptrace(2) is a system call.  If you are not a programmer, you are
probably not going to use it directly.

The developer probably means strace(1), a command that shows you all
the system calls that a program performs.  strace(1) is a program that
most likely uses ptrace(2).

| Does anyone
| know if ptrace is available for kubuntu or how to start it. I can't find
| it on my system although I have ptrace.h . I'm lost as to how ptrace
| actually works. Thanks for any help.

Ubuntu surely has ptrace.  You surely don't want to use it directly.

If you need to use strace, it is imaginable that ubuntu requires you
to install it from a package in their repository.

strace is a very useful tool.  Its output is a list of system calls
made by the program being traced so it requires a certain amount of
background knowledge to understand.


Perhaps "understanding strace output" would be a good topic for a TLUG
meeting.
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