TRUSS(1) BSD General Commands Manual TRUSS(1)NAMEtruss — trace system calls
SYNOPSIStruss [-facedDS] [-o file] [-s strsize] -p pid
truss [-facedDS] [-o file] [-s strsize] command [args]
DESCRIPTION
The truss utility traces the system calls called by the specified process
or program. Output is to the specified output file, or standard error by
default. It does this by stopping and restarting the process being moni‐
tored via ptrace(2).
The options are as follows:
-f Trace descendants of the original traced process created by
fork(2), vfork(2), etc.
-a Show the argument strings that are passed in each execve(2) sys‐
tem call.
-c Do not display individual system calls. Instead, before exiting,
print a summary containing for each system call: the total system
time used, the number of times the call was invoked, and the num‐
ber of times the call returned with an error.
-e Show the environment strings that are passed in each execve(2)
system call.
-d Include timestamps in the output showing the time elapsed since
the trace was started.
-D Include timestamps in the output showing the time elapsed since
the last recorded event.
-S Do not display information about signals received by the process.
(Normally, truss displays signal as well as system call events.)
-o file
Print the output to the specified file instead of standard error.
-s strsize
Display strings using at most strsize characters. If the buffer
is larger, “...” will be displayed at the end of the string. The
default strsize is 32.
-p pid Follow the process specified by pid instead of a new command.
command [args]
Execute command and trace the system calls of it. (The -p and
command options are mutually exclusive.)
EXAMPLES
# Follow the system calls used in echoing "hello"
$ truss /bin/echo hello
# Do the same, but put the output into a file
$ truss-o /tmp/truss.out /bin/echo hello
# Follow an already-running process
$ truss-p 34
SEE ALSOkdump(1), ktrace(1), ptrace(2)HISTORY
The truss command was written by Sean Eric Fagan for FreeBSD. It was
modeled after similar commands available for System V Release 4 and
SunOS.
BSD May 12, 2009 BSD
