Install strace on Ubuntu 24.04

The strace is a command line tool on Linux that allows you to trace the system calls and signals used by a program, providing deep insight into how it interacts with the operating system. It's commonly used for troubleshooting, debugging, and understanding program behavior by showing calls like file access, network activity, and process control in real time. This tutorial shows how to install strace on Ubuntu 24.04.

Install strace

Make sure the package lists are up-to-date:

sudo apt update

Install strace:

sudo apt install -y strace

Once installed, check strace version as follows:

strace --version

Testing strace

To use the strace command, simply run it before the command you want to trace:

strace myprog arg1 arg2

Replace myprog arg1 arg2 with the actual command. For example:

strace echo "Hello world"

It will show the system calls made by the echo command. The output might look like this:

execve("/usr/bin/echo", ["echo", "Hello world"], 0x7ffd283516a8 /* 21 vars */) = 0
brk(NULL)                               = 0x635503184000
mmap(NULL, 8192, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x7adc3baf3000
access("/etc/ld.so.preload", R_OK)      = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
openat(AT_FDCWD, "/etc/ld.so.cache", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = 3
fstat(3, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=15735, ...}) = 0
...
close(3)                                = 0
fstat(1, {st_mode=S_IFCHR|0620, st_rdev=makedev(0x88, 0), ...}) = 0
write(1, "Hello world\n", 12Hello world
)           = 12
close(1)                                = 0
close(2)                                = 0
exit_group(0)                           = ?
+++ exited with 0 +++

Uninstall strace

To completely uninstall the strace, run the following command:

sudo apt purge --autoremove -y strace