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https://github.com/JakWai01/lurk

A pretty (simple) alternative to strace
https://github.com/JakWai01/lurk

cli command-line-tool rust strace terminal

Last synced: 15 days ago
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A pretty (simple) alternative to strace

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README

        

# lurk

[![CICD](https://github.com/JakWai01/lurk/actions/workflows/CICD.yml/badge.svg)](https://github.com/JakWai01/lurk/actions/workflows/CICD.yml)

`lurk` is a simple and pretty alternative to `strace`. It allows the user to
trace system calls of a process or of a command. In contrast to `strace`,
`lurk` focuses on a simple, yet pretty, user experience while implementing the
most important use cases of `strace`.

## Demo

![Demo](assets/screencast.svg)

## Features

- Supports an opinionated subset of strace flags.
- Supports JSON output for further processing via e.g. `jq`
- Uses colorized, formatted output ;-).

## Installation

### cURL
```sh
curl -L -o /tmp/lurk.tar.gz "https://github.com/JakWai01/lurk/releases/latest/download/lurk-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz"
tar -xzf /tmp/lurk.tar.gz -C /tmp
sudo install /tmp/lurk /usr/local/bin
```

### Cargo
```sh
cargo install lurk-cli
```

### Arch Linux
```sh
pacman -S lurk
```

## Usage

To get a quick overview, you can run `lurk --help`:

```
lurk 0.2.7

USAGE:
lurk [OPTIONS] [command]...

ARGS:
... Trace command

OPTIONS:
-c, --summary-only
Report a summary instead of the regular output

-C, --summary
Report a summary in addition to the regular output

-e, --expr
A qualifying expression which modifies which events to trace or how to trace them.

-E, --env
--env var=val adds an environment variable. --env var removes an environment variable.

-f, --follow-forks
Trace child processes as they are created by currently traced processes.

-h, --help
Print help information

-j, --json
Display output in JSON format

-n, --syscall-number
Display system call numbers

-o, --file
Name of the file to print output to

-p, --attach
Attach to a running process

-s, --string-limit
Maximum string size to print

-T, --syscall-times
Show the time spent in system calls in ms.

-u, --username
Run the command with uid, gid and supplementary groups of username.

-v, --no-abbrev
Print unabbreviated versions of strings

-V, --version
Print version information

-z, --successful-only
Print only syscalls that returned without an error code

-Z, --failed-only
Print only syscalls that returned with an error code
```

### Basic trace

Basically, there are two ways of tracing system calls. You can either execute a
command directly or attach to a running process by providing the process ID
(PID) via `--attach`. In the latter case, the command has to be run with
escalated privileges (`sudo`).

#### Executing a command

```
$ lurk ls
[54605] execve("", "", "") = 0
[54605] brk(NULL) = 0x55578000
[54605] arch_prctl(12289, 0xffffe780) = -22
[54605] access("", 4) = -2
[54605] openat(4294967196, "/etc/ld.so.cache", 524288) = 3
[54605] newfstatat(3, "", 0xffffd9a0, 4096) = 0
[54605] mmap(NULL, 92599, 1, 2, 3, 0) = 0xf7fa9000
...
```

#### Attaching to a running process

```
$ sudo lurk --attach $PID
[54683] epoll_wait(5, 0xd01a3c20, 8, 4294967295) = -4
[54683] recvmsg(3, 0x4a4a0020, 0) = -11
[54683] recvmsg(3, 0x4a4a0020, 0) = -11
[54683] clock_gettime(1, 0x4a49df40) = 0
[54683] clock_gettime(1, 0x4a4a0220) = 0
[54683] recvmsg(3, 0x4a4a0050, 0) = -11
...
```

### Filtering with `--expr`

Unlike in `strace`, `lurk` only supports `--expr trace`. Since this flag
behaves almost exactly like in `strace`, here a short, slightly changed,
excerpt of the `strace`
[manpage](https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/strace.1.html) on how to use
`lurk --expr trace`:

```
-e trace=syscall_set
--trace=syscall_set
Trace only the specified set of system calls. syscall_set
is defined as [!]value[,value], and value can be one of
the following:

syscall
Trace specific syscall, specified by its name (but
see NOTES).

?value Question mark before the syscall qualification
allows suppression of error in case no syscalls
matched the qualification provided.

/regex Trace only those system calls that match the regex.
You can use POSIX Extended Regular Expression
syntax (see regex(7)).

%file
file Trace all system calls which take a file name as an
argument. You can think of this as an abbreviation
for -e trace=open,stat,chmod,unlink,... which is
useful to seeing what files the process is
referencing. Furthermore, using the abbreviation
will ensure that you don't accidentally forget to
include a call like lstat(2) in the list. Betchya
woulda forgot that one. The syntax without a
preceding percent sign ("-e trace=file") is
deprecated.

%process
process
Trace system calls associated with process
lifecycle (creation, exec, termination). The
syntax without a preceding percent sign ("-e
trace=process") is deprecated.

%net
%network
network
Trace all the network related system calls. The
syntax without a preceding percent sign ("-e
trace=network") is deprecated.

%signal
signal Trace all signal related system calls. The syntax
without a preceding percent sign ("-e
trace=signal") is deprecated.

%ipc
ipc Trace all IPC related system calls. The syntax
without a preceding percent sign ("-e trace=ipc")
is deprecated.

%desc
desc Trace all file descriptor related system calls.
The syntax without a preceding percent sign ("-e
trace=desc") is deprecated.

%memory
memory Trace all memory mapping related system calls. The
syntax without a preceding percent sign ("-e
trace=memory") is deprecated.

%creds Trace system calls that read or modify user and
group identifiers or capability sets.

%stat Trace stat syscall variants.

%lstat Trace lstat syscall variants.

%fstat Trace fstat, fstatat, and statx syscall variants.

%%stat Trace syscalls used for requesting file status
(stat, lstat, fstat, fstatat, statx, and their
variants).

%statfs
Trace statfs, statfs64, statvfs, osf_statfs, and
osf_statfs64 system calls. The same effect can be
achieved with -e trace=/^(.*_)?statv?fs regular
expression.

%fstatfs
Trace fstatfs, fstatfs64, fstatvfs, osf_fstatfs,
and osf_fstatfs64 system calls. The same effect
can be achieved with -e trace=/fstatv?fs regular
expression.

%%statfs
Trace syscalls related to file system statistics
(statfs-like, fstatfs-like, and ustat). The same
effect can be achieved with
-e trace=/statv?fs|fsstat|ustat regular expression.

%clock Trace system calls that read or modify system
clocks.

%pure Trace syscalls that always succeed and have no
arguments. Currently, this list includes
arc_gettls(2), getdtablesize(2), getegid(2),
getegid32(2), geteuid(2), geteuid32(2), getgid(2),
getgid32(2), getpagesize(2), getpgrp(2), getpid(2),
getppid(2), get_thread_area(2) (on architectures
other than x86), gettid(2), get_tls(2), getuid(2),
getuid32(2), getxgid(2), getxpid(2), getxuid(2),
kern_features(2), and metag_get_tls(2) syscalls.

The -c option is useful for determining which system calls
might be useful to trace. For example,
trace=open,close,read,write means to only trace those four
system calls. Be careful when making inferences about the
user/kernel boundary if only a subset of system calls are
being monitored. The default is trace=all.

```

**Note**: When negating a statement with `!`, make sure to escape it (`\!`)
when using bash.

#### Filtering for system calls not containing the letter `o`

```
$ lurk --expr trace=\!/o ls
[55155] execve("", "", "") = 0
[55155] brk(NULL) = 0x55578000
[55155] arch_prctl(12289, 0xffffe780) = -22
[55155] access("", 4) = -2
[55155] newfstatat(3, "", 0xffffd9a0, 4096) = 0
[55155] mmap(NULL, 92599, 1, 2, 3, 0) = 0xf7fa9000
[55155] read(3, "\u{7f}ELF\u{2}\u{1}\u{1}", 832) = 832
...
```

#### Filtering only for all system calls taking a file as an argument

```
$ lurk --expr trace=%file ls
[55121] access("", 4) = -2
[55121] openat(4294967196, "/etc/ld.so.cache", 524288) = 3
[55121] newfstatat(3, "", 0xffffd9a0, 4096) = 0
[55121] openat(4294967196, "/usr/lib/libcap.so.2", 524288) = 3
[55121] newfstatat(3, "", 0xffffd9a0, 4096) = 0
[55121] openat(4294967196, "/usr/lib/libc.so.6", 524288) = 3
[55121] newfstatat(3, "", 0xffffd980, 4096) = 0
...
```

#### Suppress error for `prctl` system call

```
$ lurk --expr trace=?prctl ls
[55407] execve("", "", "") = 0
[55407] brk(NULL) = 0x55578000
[55407] arch_prctl(12289, 0xffffe780) = -22
[55407] access("", 4) = -2
[55407] openat(4294967196, "/etc/ld.so.cache", 524288) = 3
[55407] newfstatat(3, "", 0xffffd9a0, 4096) = 0
[55407] mmap(NULL, 92599, 1, 2, 3, 0) = 0xf7fa9000
```

#### Only output `openat`, `close` and `mmap` system calls

```
$ lurk --expr trace=openat,close,mmap ls
[55440] openat(4294967196, "/etc/ld.so.cache", 524288) = 3
[55440] mmap(NULL, 92599, 1, 2, 3, 0) = 0xf7fa9000
[55440] close(3) = 0
[55440] openat(4294967196, "/usr/lib/libcap.so.2", 524288) = 3
[55440] mmap(NULL, 8192, 3, 34, 4294967295, 0) = 0xf7fa7000
[55440] mmap(NULL, 45128, 1, 2050, 3, 0) = 0xf7f9b000
[55440] mmap(0xf7f9e000, 20480, 5, 2066, 3, 12288) = 0xf7f9e000
```

#### Using as a Rust library

See the [tracer](examples/tracer.rs) example.

## Acknowledgements

- [sharkdp/fd](https://github.com/sharkdp/fd) as an inspiration on how to
structure a Rust CLI and its README.
- All maintainers of the dependencies used to create lurk and all of those who
answered my questions regarding `ptrace`.

## License

lurk (c) 2022-2023 Jakob Waibel, Yuri Astrakhan, and contributors

SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT OR Apache-2.0