.\"	$NetBSD: ptrace.2,v 1.67.2.1 2018/03/06 09:52:09 martin Exp $
.\"
.\" This file is in the public domain.
.Dd April 7, 2017
.Dt PTRACE 2
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm ptrace
.Nd process tracing and debugging
.Sh LIBRARY
.Lb libc
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.In sys/types.h
.In sys/ptrace.h
.Ft int
.Fn ptrace "int request" "pid_t pid" "void *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
.Po
see
.Xr siginfo 2
.Pc ,
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
When a process that is traced by a debugger requests 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 and emit
.Dv SIGTRAP
with
.Dv si_code
set to
.Dv TRAP_EXEC .
If a program is traced with the
.Dv PT_SYSCALL
option enabled,
this event notifier is disabled.
If a traced program calls
.Xr execve 2
any setuid or setgid bits on the executable being executed will be ignored.
.Pp
Program (software) breakpoints are reported with
.Dv SIGTRAP
and the
.Dv si_code
value set to
.Dv TRAP_BKPT .
These breakpoints are machine specific instructions that interrupt the process.
In order to put a trap by a tracer into the tracee's program,
debugger must violate the
.Dv PaX MPROTECT
restrictions.
For details check the
.Dv security.pax.mprotect.ptrace
option described in
.Xr sysctl 7 .
When a tracee is interrupted by a trap,
the trap is not removed by the kernel and it must be handled by a debugger.
.Pp
If a program is traced with single steps
.Dv ( PT_STEP )
it reports each step with
.Dv SIGTRAP
with
.Dv si_code
set to
.Dv TRAP_TRACE .
This event is not maskable
.Dv PT_SET_EVENT_MASK .
.Pp
Child program traps are reported with
.Dv SIGTRAP
and the
.Dv si_code
value set to
.Dv TRAP_CHLD .
These events are by default disabled and can be configured with
.Dv PT_SET_EVENT_MASK .
If this event occurs,
check with
.Dv PT_GET_PROCESS_STATE
the details of the process state associated with this event.
.Pp
Design choices for Debug Register accessors
.Bl -dash
.It
.Fn exec
.Dv ( TRAP_EXEC
event) must remove debug registers from LWP
.It
debug registers are only per-LWP, not per-process globally
.It
debug registers must not be inherited after (v)forking a process
.It
debug registers must not be inherited after forking a thread
.It
a debugger is responsible to set global watchpoints/breakpoints with the
debug registers,
to achieve this
.Dv PTRACE_LWP_CREATE
/
.Dv PTRACE_LWP_EXIT
event monitoring function is designed to be used
.It
debug register traps must generate
.Dv SIGTRAP with
.Dv si_code
.Dv TRAP_DBREG
.It
debugger is responsible to retrieve debug register state to distinguish
the exact debug register trap
.It
kernel must not remove debug register traps after triggering a trap event;
a debugger is responsible to detach this trap with appropriate
.Dv PT_SETDBREGS
call
.It
debug registers must not be exposed in mcontext
.It
userland must not be allowed to set a trap on the kernel
.El
.Pp
A debugger might reuse port specific symbols,
to help writing portable code as described in the port specific part of the
.In sys/ptrace.h
header.
Among these symbols,
there are:
.Bl -dash
.It
.Dv PTRACE_REG_PC
.It
.Dv PTRACE_REG_SET_PC
.It
.Dv PTRACE_REG_SP
.It
.Dv PTRACE_REG_INTRV
.It
.Dv PTRACE_BREAKPOINT
.It
.Dv PTRACE_BREAKPOINT_SIZE
.It
.Dv PTRACE_BREAKPOINT_ADJ
.El
.Pp
The
.Fa request
argument
of
.Nm
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
.Nm
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
.Fn ptrace .
.Pp
This call does not stop the process neither emit
.Dv SIGSTOP
to parent.
.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
.Nx
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_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 (void *)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.
If a negative value is supplied, that is the negative of the LWP
ID of the thread to be resumed, and only that thread executes.
.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.
.It Dv PT_ATTACH
This request allows a process to gain control of an otherwise unrelated
process and begin tracing it.
It does not need any cooperation from the to-be-traced process.
In this case,
.Fa pid
specifies the process ID of the to-be-traced process, and the other two
arguments are ignored.
This request requires that the target process
must have the same real UID as the tracing process, and that it must
not be executing a setuid or setgid executable.
(If the tracing process is running as root,
these restrictions do not apply.)
.Pp
The tracing process will see the newly-traced process stop and may then
control it as if it had been traced all along.
It means that the
.Dv SIGSTOP
signal is emitted to tracer.
It is different behavior to the one from
.Dv PT_TRACE_ME .
.Pp
Three other restrictions apply to all tracing processes, even those
running as root.
First, no process may trace a system process.
Second, no process may trace the process running
.Xr init 8 .
Third, if a process has its root directory set with
.Xr chroot 2 ,
it may not trace another process unless that process' root directory
is at or below the tracing process' root.
.It Dv PT_DETACH
This request is like PT_CONTINUE, except that after it
succeeds, the traced process is no longer traced and continues
execution normally.
.It Dv PT_IO
This request is a more general interface that can be used instead of
.Dv PT_READ_D ,
.Dv PT_WRITE_D ,
.Dv PT_READ_I ,
and
.Dv PT_WRITE_I .
The I/O request is encoded in a
.Dq Li "struct ptrace_io_desc"
defined as:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
struct ptrace_io_desc {
	int	piod_op;
	void	*piod_offs;
	void	*piod_addr;
	size_t	piod_len;
};
.Ed
.Pp
where
.Fa piod_offs
is the offset within the traced process where the I/O operation should
take place,
.Fa piod_addr
is the buffer in the tracing process, and
.Fa piod_len
is the length of the I/O request.
The
.Fa piod_op
field specifies which type of I/O operation to perform.
Possible values are:
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width 18n -offset indent -compact
.It Dv PIOD_READ_D
.It Dv PIOD_WRITE_D
.It Dv PIOD_READ_I
.It Dv PIOD_WRITE_I
.It Dv PIOD_READ_AUXV
.El
.Pp
See the description of
.Dv PT_READ_I
for the difference between I and D spaces.
.Pp
The
.Dv PIOD_READ_AUXV
operation can be used to read from the ELF auxiliary vector.
The
.Fa piod_offs
argument sets the offset within the tracee's vector.
To read from the beginning of it, this value must be set to 0 and cast to
.Dv (void *) .
.Pp
A pointer to the I/O descriptor is passed in the
.Fa addr
argument to
.Fn ptrace .
On return, the
.Fa piod_len
field in the I/O descriptor will be updated with the actual number of
bytes transferred.
If the requested I/O could not be successfully performed,
.Fn ptrace
will return
.Li \-1
and set
.Va errno .
.It Dv PT_DUMPCORE
Makes the process specified in the
.Fa pid
pid generate a core dump.
The
.Fa addr
argument should contain the name of the core file to be generated
and the
.Fa data
argument should contain the length of the core filename.
.It Dv PT_LWPINFO
Returns information about a thread from the list of threads for the
process specified in the
.Fa pid
argument.
The
.Fa addr
argument should contain a
.Dq Li "struct ptrace_lwpinfo"
defined as:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
struct ptrace_lwpinfo {
	lwpid_t pl_lwpid;
	int pl_event;
};
.Ed
.Pp
where
.Fa pl_lwpid
contains a thread LWP ID.
Information is returned for the thread following the one with the
specified ID in the process thread list, or for the first thread
if
.Fa pl_lwpid
is 0.
Upon return
.Fa pl_lwpid
contains the LWP ID of the thread that was found, or 0 if there is
no thread after the one whose LWP ID was supplied in the call.
.Fa pl_event
contains the event that stopped the thread.
Possible values are:
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width 30n -offset indent -compact
.It Dv PL_EVENT_NONE
.It Dv PL_EVENT_SIGNAL
.It Dv PL_EVENT_SUSPENDED
.El
.Pp
The
.Fa data
argument should contain
.Dq Li "sizeof(struct ptrace_lwpinfo)" .
.It Dv PT_SYSCALL
Stops a process before and after executing each system call.
Otherwise this operation is the same as
.Dv PT_CONTINUE .
.It Dv PT_SYSCALLEMU
Intercept and ignore a system call before it has been executed, for use with
.Dv PT_SYSCALL .
This operation shall be called for syscall entry trap from
.Dv PT_SYSCALL .
To resume execution after intercepting the system call,
another
.Dv PT_SYSCALL
shall be used.
.It Dv PT_SET_EVENT_MASK
This request can be used to specify which events in the traced process
should be reported to the tracing process.
These events are specified in a
.Dq Li "struct ptrace_event"
defined as:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
typedef struct ptrace_event {
	int	pe_set_event;
} ptrace_event_t;
.Ed
.Pp
.Fa pe_set_event
is the set of events to be reported.
This set is formed by OR'ing together the following values:
.Bl -tag -width 18n
.It PTRACE_FORK
Report
.Xr fork 2 .
.It PTRACE_VFORK
Report
.Xr vfork 2 .
.It PTRACE_VFORK_DONE
Report parent resumed after
.Xr vfork 2 .
.It PTRACE_LWP_CREATE
Report thread birth.
.It PTRACE_LWP_EXIT
Report thread termination.
.El
.Pp
The
.Xr fork 2
and
.Xr vfork 2
events can occur with similar operations,
like
.Xr clone 2
or
.Xr posix_spawn 3 .
The
.Dv PTRACE_FORK
value means that process gives birth to its child
without pending on its termination or
.Xr execve 2
operation.
If enabled,
the child is also traced by the debugger and
.Dv SIGRAP
is generated twice,
first for the parent and second for the child.
The
.Dv PTRACE_VFORK
event is the same as
.Dv PTRACE_FORK ,
but the parent blocks after giving birth to the child.
The
.Dv PTRACE_VFORK_DONE
event can be used to report unblocking of the parent.
.Pp
A pointer to this structure is passed in
.Fa addr .
The
.Fa data
argument should be set to
.Li sizeof(struct ptrace_event) .
.It Dv PT_GET_EVENT_MASK
This request can be used to determine which events in the traced
process will be reported.
The information is read into the
.Dq Li struct ptrace_event
pointed to by
.Fa addr .
The
.Fa data
argument should be set to
.Li sizeof(struct ptrace_event) .
.It Dv PT_GET_PROCESS_STATE
This request reads the state information associated with the event
that stopped the traced process.
The information is reported in a
.Dq Li "struct ptrace_state"
defined as:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
typedef struct ptrace_state {
	int	pe_report_event;
	pid_t	pe_other_pid;
} ptrace_state_t;
.Ed
.Pp
A pointer to this structure is passed in
.Fa addr .
The
.Fa data
argument should be set to
.Li sizeof(struct ptrace_state) .
.It Dv PT_SET_SIGINFO
This request can be used to specify signal information emitted to tracee.
This signal information is specified in
.Dq Li "struct ptrace_siginfo"
defined as:
.Bd -literal -offset indentq
typedef struct ptrace_siginfo {
	siginfo_t	psi_siginfo;
	lwpid_t		psi_lwpid;
} ptrace_siginfo_t;
.Ed
.Pp
Where
.Fa psi_siginfo
is the set to signal information structure.
The
.Fa psi_lwpid
field describes LWP address of the signal.
Value
.Dv 0
means the whole process
(route signal to all LWPs).
.Pp
A pointer to this structure is passed in
.Fa addr .
The
.Fa data
argument should be set to
.Li sizeof(struct ptrace_siginfo) .
.Pp
In order to pass faked signal to the tracee,
the signal type must match the signal passed to the process with
.Dv PT_CONTINUE
or
.Dv PT_SYSCALL .
.It Dv PT_GET_SIGINFO
This request can be used to determine signal information that was received by
a debugger
.Po
see
.Xr siginfo 2
.Pc .
The information is read into the
.Dq Li struct ptrace_siginfo
pointed to by
.Fa addr .
The
.Fa data
argument should be set to
.Li sizeof(struct ptrace_siginfo) .
.It Dv PT_RESUME
Allow execution of a specified thread,
change its state from suspended to continued.
The
.Fa addr
argument is unused.
The
.Fa data
argument specifies the LWP ID.
.Pp
This call is equivalent to
.Xr _lwp_continue 2
called by a traced process.
This call does not change the general process state from stopped to continued.
.It Dv PT_SUSPEND
Prevent execution of a specified thread,
change its state from continued to suspended.
The
.Fa addr
argument is unused.
The
.Fa data
argument specifies the requested LWP ID.
.Pp
This call is equivalent to
.Xr _lwp_suspend 2
called by a traced process.
This call does not change the general process state from continued to stopped.
.El
.Pp
Additionally, the following requests exist but are
not available on all machine architectures.
The file
.In machine/ptrace.h
lists which requests exist on a given machine.
.Bl -tag -width 12n
.It Dv PT_STEP
Execution continues as in request PT_CONTINUE; however
as soon as possible after execution of at least one
instruction, execution stops again.
If the
.Fa data
argument is greater than 0, it contains the LWP ID of the thread to be
stepped, and any other threads are continued.
If the
.Fa data
argument is less than zero, it contains the negative of the LWP ID of
the thread to be stepped, and only that thread executes.
.It Dv PT_SETSTEP
This request will turn on single stepping of the specified process.
.It Dv PT_CLEARSTEP
This request will turn off single stepping of the specified process.
.It Dv PT_GETREGS
This request reads the traced process' machine registers into the
.Dq Li "struct reg"
(defined in
.In machine/reg.h )
pointed to by
.Fa addr .
The
.Fa data
argument contains the LWP ID of the thread whose registers are to
be read.
If zero is supplied, the first thread of the process is read.
.It Dv PT_SETREGS
This request is the converse of
.Dv PT_GETREGS ;
it loads the traced process' machine registers from the
.Dq Li "struct reg"
(defined in
.In machine/reg.h )
pointed to by
.Fa addr .
The
.Fa data
argument contains the LWP ID of the thread whose registers are to
be written.
If zero is supplied, the first thread of the process is written.
.It Dv PT_GETFPREGS
This request reads the traced process' floating-point registers into
the
.Dq Li "struct fpreg"
(defined in
.In machine/reg.h )
pointed to by
.Fa addr .
The
.Fa data
argument contains the LWP ID of the thread whose registers are to
be read.
If zero is supplied, the first thread of the process is read.
.It Dv PT_SETFPREGS
This request is the converse of
.Dv PT_GETFPREGS ;
it loads the traced process' floating-point registers from the
.Dq Li "struct fpreg"
(defined in
.In machine/reg.h )
pointed to by
.Fa addr .
The
.Fa data
argument contains the LWP ID of the thread whose registers are to
be written.
If zero is supplied, the first thread of the process is written.
.It Dv PT_GETDBREGS
This request reads the traced process' debug registers into
the
.Dq Li "struct dbreg"
(defined in
.In machine/reg.h )
pointed to by
.Fa addr .
The
.Fa data
argument contains the LWP ID of the thread whose registers are to
be read.
If zero is supplied, the first thread of the process is read.
.It Dv PT_SETDBREGS
This request is the converse of
.Dv PT_GETDBREGS ;
it loads the traced process' debug registers from the
.Dq Li "struct dbreg"
(defined in
.In machine/reg.h )
pointed to by
.Fa addr .
The
.Fa data
argument contains the LWP ID of the thread whose registers are to
be written.
If zero is supplied, the first thread of the process is written.
.It Dv PT_GETXMMREGS
This request reads the traced process' XMM registers into
the
.Dq Li "struct xmmregs"
(defined in
.In machine/reg.h )
pointed to by
.Fa addr .
The
.Fa data
argument contains the LWP ID of the thread whose registers are to
be read.
If zero is supplied, the first thread of the process is read.
.It Dv PT_SETXMMREGS
This request is the converse of
.Dv PT_GETXMMREGS ;
it loads the traced process' XMM registers from the
.Dq Li "struct xmmregs"
(defined in
.In machine/reg.h )
pointed to by
.Fa addr .
The
.Fa data
argument contains the LWP ID of the thread whose registers are to
be written.
If zero is supplied, the first thread of the process is written.
.It Dv PT_GETVECREGS
This request reads the traced process' vector registers into
the
.Dq Li "struct vreg"
(defined in
.In machine/reg.h )
pointed to by
.Fa addr .
The
.Fa data
argument contains the LWP ID of the thread whose registers are to
be read.
If zero is supplied, the first thread of the process is read.
.It Dv PT_SETVECREGS
This request is the converse of
.Dv PT_GETVECREGS ;
it loads the traced process' vector registers from the
.Dq Li "struct vreg"
(defined in
.In machine/reg.h )
pointed to by
.Fa addr .
The
.Fa data
argument contains the LWP ID of the thread whose registers are to
be written.
If zero is supplied, the first thread of the process is written.
.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 "[EINVAL]"
.It Bq Er EAGAIN
Process is currently exec'ing and cannot be traced.
.It Bq Er EBUSY
.Bl -bullet -compact
.It
.Dv PT_ATTACH
was attempted on a process that was already being traced.
.It
A request attempted to manipulate a process that was being traced by
some process other than the one making the request.
.It
A request (other than
.Dv PT_ATTACH )
specified a process that wasn't stopped.
.El
.It Bq Er EDEADLK
An attempt to unstop a process with locked threads.
.It Bq Er EINVAL
.Bl -bullet -compact
.It
A process attempted to use
.Dv PT_ATTACH
on itself.
.It
The
.Fa request
was not a legal request on this machine architecture.
.It
The signal number (in
.Fa data )
to
.Dv PT_CONTINUE
was neither 0 nor a legal signal number.
.It
.Dv PT_GETREGS ,
.Dv PT_SETREGS ,
.Dv PT_GETFPREGS ,
or
.Dv PT_SETFPREGS
was attempted on a process with no valid register set.
(This is normally true only of system processes.)
.El
.It Bq Er EPERM
.Bl -bullet -compact
.It
A request (other than
.Dv PT_ATTACH )
attempted to manipulate a process that wasn't being traced at all.
.It
An attempt was made to use
.Dv PT_ATTACH
on a process in violation of the requirements listed under
.Dv PT_ATTACH
above.
.El
.It Bq Er ESRCH
No process having the specified process ID exists.
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr sigaction 2 ,
.Xr signal 7
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Fn ptrace
function appeared in
.At v7 .
.Sh BUGS
On the SPARC, the PC is set to the provided PC value for
.Dv PT_CONTINUE
and similar calls,
but the NPC is set willy-nilly to 4 greater than the PC value.
Using
.Dv PT_GETREGS
and
.Dv PT_SETREGS
to modify the PC, passing
.Li (void *)1
to
.Eo \&
.Fn ptrace
.Ec ,
should be able to sidestep this.
.Pp
.Dv PTRACE_VFORK
is currently unimplemented and it will return
.Er ENOTSUP .
.Pp
.Dv PT_SET_SIGINFO ,
.Dv PT_RESUME
and
.Dv PT_SUSPEND
can change the image of process returned by
.Dv PT_LWPINFO .