freebsd/lib/libc/sys/ptrace.2

.\"	$Id$
.\"	$NetBSD: ptrace.2,v 1.2 1995/02/27 12:35:37 cgd Exp $
.\"
.\" This file is in the public domain.
.Dd January 20, 1996
.Dt PTRACE 2
.Os FreeBSD 2
.Sh NAME
.Nm ptrace
.Nd process tracing and debugging
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Fd #include <sys/types.h>
.Fd #include <sys/ptrace.h>
.Ft int
.Fn ptrace "int request" "pid_t pid" "caddr_t addr" "int data"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Fn ptrace
provides tracing and debugging facilities.  It allows one process (the
.Em tracing
process) to control another (the
.Em traced
process).  Most of the time, the traced process runs normally, but when
it receives a signal
.Po
see
.Xr sigaction 2
.Pc ,
it stops.  The tracing process is expected to notice this via
.Xr wait 2
or the delivery of a
.Dv SIGCHLD
signal, examine the state of the stopped process, and cause it to
terminate or continue as appropriate.
.Fn ptrace
is the mechanism by which all this happens.
.Pp
The
.Fa request
argument specifies what operation is being performed; the meaning of
the rest of the arguments depends on the operation, but except for one
special case noted below, all
.Fn ptrace
calls are made by the tracing process, and the
.Fa pid
argument specifies the process ID of the traced process.
.Fa request
can be:
.Bl -tag -width 12n
.It Dv PT_TRACE_ME
This request is the only one used by the traced process; it declares
that the process expects to be traced by its parent.  All the other
arguments are ignored.  (If the parent process does not expect to trace
the child, it will probably be rather confused by the results; once the
traced process stops, it cannot be made to continue except via
.Eo \&
.Fn ptrace
.Ec \&.)
When a process has used this request and calls
.Xr execve 2
or any of the routines built on it
.Po
such as
.Xr execv 3
.Pc ,
it will stop before executing the first instruction of the new image.
Also, any setuid or setgid bits on the executable being executed will
be ignored.
.It Dv PT_READ_I , Dv PT_READ_D
These requests read a single
.Li int
of data from the traced process' address space.  Traditionally,
.Fn ptrace
has allowed for machines with distinct address spaces for instruction
and data, which is why there are two requests: conceptually,
.Dv PT_READ_I
reads from the instruction space and
.Dv PT_READ_D
reads from the data space.  In the current NetBSD implementation, these
two requests are completely identical.  The
.Fa addr
argument specifies the address (in the traced process' virtual address
space) at which the read is to be done.  This address does not have to
meet any alignment constraints.  The value read is returned as the
return value from
.Eo \&
.Fn ptrace
.Ec .
.It Dv PT_WRITE_I , Dv PT_WRITE_D
These requests parallel
.Dv PT_READ_I
and
.Dv PT_READ_D ,
except that they write rather than read.  The
.Fa data
argument supplies the value to be written.
.It Dv PT_READ_U
This request reads an
.Li int
from the traced process' user structure.  The
.Fa addr
argument specifies the location of the int relative to the base of the
user structure; it will usually be an integer value cast to
.Li caddr_t
either explicitly or via the presence of a prototype for
.Eo \&
.Fn ptrace
.Ec .
Unlike
.Dv PT_READ_I
and
.Dv PT_READ_D ,
.Fa addr
must be aligned on an
.Li int
boundary.  The value read is returned as the return value from
.Eo \&
.Fn ptrace
.Ec .
.It Dv PT_WRITE_U
This request writes an
.Li int
into the traced process' user structure.
.Fa addr
specifies the offset, just as for
.Dv PT_READ_U ,
and
.Fa data
specifies the value to be written, just as for
.Dv PT_WRITE_I
and
.Dv PT_WRITE_D .
.It Dv PT_CONTINUE
The traced process continues execution.
.Fa addr
is an address specifying the place where execution is to be resumed (a
new value for the program counter), or
.Li (caddr_t)1
to indicate that execution is to pick up where it left off.
.Fa data
provides a signal number to be delivered to the traced process as it
resumes execution, or 0 if no signal is to be sent.
.It Dv PT_KILL
The traced process terminates, as if
.Dv PT_CONTINUE
had been used with
.Dv SIGKILL
given as the signal to be delivered.
.El
.Sh ERRORS
Some requests can cause
.Fn ptrace
to return
.Li -1
as a non-error value; to disambiguate,
.Va errno
can be set to 0 before the call and checked afterwards.  The possible
errors are:
.Bl -tag -width 4n
.It Bq Er ESRCH
.Bl -bullet -compact
.It
No process having the specified process ID exists.
.El
.It Bq Er EINVAL
.Bl -bullet -compact
.It
The
.Fa request
was not one of the legal requests.
.It
The
.Fa addr
to
.Dv PT_READ_U
or
.Dv PT_WRITE_U
was not
.Li int Ns \&-aligned.
.It
The signal number (in
.Fa data )
to
.Dv PT_CONTINUE
was neither 0 nor a legal signal number.
.El
.It Bq Er EPERM
.Bl -bullet -compact
.It
A request
attempted to manipulate a process that wasn't being traced at all.
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr sigaction 2
.Xr wait 2
.Xr execve 2
.Xr execv 3