.TH execsnoop 8  "2014-07-07" "USER COMMANDS"
.SH NAME
execsnoop \- trace process exec() with arguments. Uses Linux ftrace.
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B execsnoop
[\-h] [\-n name]
.SH DESCRIPTION
execsnoop traces process execution, showing PID, PPID, and argument details
if possible.

This traces exec() from the fork()->exec() sequence, which means it won't
catch new processes that only fork(), and, it will catch processes that
re-exec. This instruments sched:sched_process_exec without buffering, and then
in user-space (this program) reads PPID and process arguments asynchronously
from /proc.

If the process traced is very short-lived, this program may miss reading
arguments and PPID details. In that case, "<?>" and "?" will be printed
respectively.

This program is best-effort (a hack), and should be improved in the future when
other kernel capabilities are made available. It may be useful in the meantime.
If you need a more reliable tool now, consider other tracing alternates (eg,
SystemTap). This tool is really a proof of concept to see what ftrace can
currently do.

Since this uses ftrace, only the root user can use this tool.
.SH REQUIREMENTS
FTRACE CONFIG and the sched:sched_process_exec tracepoint, which you may already
have enabled and available on recent kernels, and Perl.
.SH OPTIONS
\-n name
Only show processes that match this name. This is filtered in user space.
.TP
\-h
Print usage message.
.SH EXAMPLES
.TP
Trace all new processes and arguments (if possible):
.B execsnoop
.TP
Trace all new processes with process name "sed":
.B execsnoop -n sed
.SH FIELDS
.TP
TIME
Time of process exec(): HH:MM:SS.
.TP
PID
Process ID.
.TP
PPID
Parent process ID, if this was able to be read (may be missed for short-lived
processes). If it is unable to be read, "?" is printed.
.TP
ARGS
Command line arguments, if these were able to be read in time (may be missed
for short-lived processes). If they are unable to be read, "<?>" is printed.
.SH OVERHEAD
This reads and processes exec() events in user space as they occur. Since the
rate of exec() is expected to be low (< 500/s), the overhead is expected to
be small or negligible.
.SH SOURCE
This is from the perf-tools collection.
.IP
https://github.com/brendangregg/perf-tools
.PP
Also look under the examples directory for a text file containing example
usage, output, and commentary for this tool.
.SH OS
Linux
.SH STABILITY
Unstable - in development.
.SH AUTHOR
Brendan Gregg
.SH SEE ALSO
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