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    SubjectPtrace documentation, draft #3
    Ptrace discussions repeatedly display a higher than average amount
    of misunderstanding and confusion. New ptrace users and even people
    who already worked with it are repeatedly confused by details
    which are not documented anywhere and knowledge about which exists
    mostly in the brains of strace/gdb/other_such_tools developers.

    This document is meant as a brain dump of this knowledge.
    It assumes that the reader has basic understanding what ptrace is.

    Since draft no. 2, I added/changed some info:

    * more GETSIGINFO information
    * extended section about execve
    * five less "???" remains (16 -> 11)

    ======================================================================
    ======================================================================
    ======================================================================
    Ptrace

    Ptrace API (ab)uses standard Unix parent/child signaling over waitpid.
    An unfortunate effect of it is that resulting API is complex and has
    subtle quirks. This document aims to describe these quirks.

    It is split into two parts. First part focuses exclusively on
    userspace-visible API and behavior. Second section describes kernel
    internals of ptrace.



    1. Userspace API.

    (Note to editors: in this section, do not use kernel concepts and terms
    which are not observable through userspace API and user-visible
    behavior. Use section 2 for that.)

    Debugged processes (tracees) first need to be attached to the debugging
    process (tracer). Attachment and subsequent commands are per-thread: in
    multi-threaded process, every thread can be individually attached to a
    (potentially different) tracer, or left not attached and thus not
    debugged. Therefore, "tracee" always means "(one) thread", never "a
    (possibly multi-threaded) process". Ptrace commands are always sent to
    a specific tracee using ptrace(PTRACE_foo, pid, ...), where pid is a
    TID of the corresponding Linux thread.

    After attachment, each tracee can be in two states: running or stopped.

    There are many kinds of states when tracee is stopped, and in ptrace
    discussions they are often conflated. Therefore, it is important to use
    precise terms.

    In this document, any stopped state in which tracee is ready to accept
    ptrace commands from the tracer is called ptrace-stop. Ptrace-stops can
    be further subdivided into signal-delivery-stop, group-stop,
    syscall-stop and so on. They are described in detail later.


    1.x Death under ptrace.

    When a (possibly multi-threaded) process receives a killing signal (a
    signal set to SIG_DFL and whose default action is to kill the process),
    all threads exit. Tracees report their death to the tracer(s). This is
    not a ptrace-stop (because tracer can't query tracee status such as
    register contents, cannot restart tracee etc) but the notification
    about this event is delivered through waitpid API similarly to
    ptrace-stop.

    Note that killing signal will first cause signal-delivery-stop (on one
    tracee only), and only after it is injected by tracer (or after it was
    dispatched to a thread which isn't traced), death from signal will
    happen on ALL tracees within multi-threaded process.

    SIGKILL operates similarly, with exceptions. No signal-delivery-stop is
    generated for SIGKILL and therefore tracer can't suppress it. SIGKILL
    kills even within syscalls (syscall-exit-stop is not generated prior to
    death by SIGKILL). The net effect is that SIGKILL always kills the
    process (all its threads), even if some threads of the process are
    ptraced.

    Tracer can kill a tracee with ptrace(PTRACE_KILL, pid, 0, 0). This
    opeartion is deprecated, use kill/tgkill(SIGKILL) instead.

    ^^^ Oleg prefers to deprecate it instead of describing (and needing to
    support) PTRACE_KILL's quirks.

    When tracee executes exit syscall, it reports its death to its tracer.
    Other threads are not affected.

    When any thread executes exit_group syscall, every tracee in its thread
    group reports its death to its tracer.

    If PTRACE_O_TRACEEXIT option is on, PTRACE_EVENT_EXIT will happen
    before actual death. This applies to both normal exits and signal
    deaths (except SIGKILL).

    KNOWN BUG: PTRACE_EVENT_EXIT should happen for every tracee in thread
    group on exit_group or signal death, but currently (~2.6.38) this is
    buggy: some of these stops may be missed.

    Tracer cannot assume that ptrace-stopped tracee exists. There are many
    scenarios when tracee may die while stopped (such as SIGKILL). There
    are cases where tracee disappears without reporting death (such as
    execve in multi-threaded process). Therefore, tracer must always be
    prepared to handle ESRCH error on any ptrace operation. Unfortunately,
    the same error is returned if tracee exists but is not ptrace-stopped
    (for commands which require stopped tracee). Tracer needs to keep track
    of stopped/running state, and interpret ESRCH as "tracee died
    unexpectedly" only if it knows that tracee has been observed to enter
    ptrace-stop.

    There is no guarantee that waitpid(WNOHANG) will reliably report
    tracee's death status if ptrace operation returned ESRCH.
    waitpid(WNOHANG) may return 0 instead. IOW: tracee may be "not yet
    fully dead" but already refusing ptrace ops.

    Tracer can not assume that tracee ALWAYS ends its life by reporting
    WIFEXITED(status) or WIFSIGNALED(status). One notable case is execve in
    multi-threaded process, which is described later.


    1.x Stopped states.

    When running tracee enters ptrace-stop, it notifies its tracer using
    waitpid API. Tracer should use waitpid family of syscalls to wait for
    tracee to stop. Most of this document assumes that tracer waits with:
    pid = waitpid(pid_or_minus_1, &status, __WALL);
    Ptrace-stopped tracees are reported as returns with pid > 0 and
    WIFSTOPPED(status) == true.

    ??? any pitfalls with WNOHANG (I remember that there are bugs in this
    area)? effects of WSTOPPED, WEXITED, WCONTINUED bits? Are they ok?
    waitid usage? WNOWAIT?


    1.x.x Signal-delivery-stop

    When (possibly multi-threaded) process receives any signal except
    SIGKILL, kernel selects a thread which handles the signal (if signal is
    generated with tgkill, thread selection is done by user). If selected
    thread is traced, it enters signal-delivery-stop. By this point, signal
    is not yet delivered to the process, and can be suppressed by tracer.
    If tracer doesn't suppress the signal, it passes signal to tracee in
    the next ptrace request. This is called "signal injection" and will be
    described later. Note that if signal is blocked, signal-delivery-stop
    doesn't happen until signal is unblocked, with the usual exception that
    SIGSTOP can't be blocked.

    Signal-delivery-stop is observed by tracer as waitpid returning with
    WIFSTOPPED(status) == true, WSTOPSIG(status) == signal. If
    WSTOPSIG(status) == SIGTRAP, this may be a different kind of
    ptrace-stop - see "Syscall-stops" and "execve" sections below for
    details. If WSTOPSIG(status) == stopping signal, this may be a
    group-stop - see below.


    1.x.x Signal injection and suppression.

    After signal-delivery-stop is observed by tracer, tracer should restart
    tracee with
    ptrace(PTRACE_rest, pid, 0, sig)
    call, where PTRACE_rest is one of the restarting ptrace ops. If sig is
    0, then signal is not delivered. Otherwise, signal sig is delivered.
    This operation is called "signal injection", to distinguish it from
    signal delivery which causes signal-delivery-stop.

    Note that sig value may be different from WSTOPSIG(status) value -
    tracer can cause a different signal to be injected.

    Note that suppressed signal still causes syscalls to return
    prematurely. Restartable syscalls will be restarted (tracer will
    observe tracee to execute restart_syscall(2) syscall if tracer uses
    PTRACE_SYSCALL), non-restartable syscalls (for example, nanosleep) may
    return with -EINTR even though no observable signal is injected to the
    tracee.

    Note that restarting ptrace commands issued in ptrace-stops other than
    signal-delivery-stop are not guaranteed to inject a signal, even if sig
    is nonzero. No error is reported, nonzero sig may simply be ignored.
    Ptrace users should not try to "create new signal" this way: use
    tgkill(2) instead.

    This is a cause of confusion among ptrace users. One typical scenario
    is that tracer observes group-stop, mistakes it for
    signal-delivery-stop, restarts tracee with ptrace(PTRACE_rest, pid, 0,
    stopsig) with the intention of injecting stopsig, but stopsig gets
    ignored and tracee continues to run.

    SIGCONT signal has a side effect of waking up (all threads of)
    group-stopped process. This side effect happens before
    signal-delivery-stop. Tracer can't suppress this side-effect (it can
    only suppress signal injection, which only causes SIGCONT handler to
    not be executed in the tracee, if such handler is installed). In fact,
    waking up from group-stop may be followed by signal-delivery-stop for
    signal(s) *other than* SIGCONT, if they were pending when SIGCONT was
    delivered. IOW: SIGCONT may be not the first signal observed by the
    tracee after it was sent.

    Stopping signals cause (all threads of) process to enter group-stop.
    This side effect happens after signal injection, and therefore can be
    suppressed by tracer.

    PTRACE_GETSIGINFO can be used to retrieve siginfo_t structure which
    corresponds to delivered signal. PTRACE_SETSIGINFO may be used to
    modify it. If PTRACE_SETSIGINFO has been used to alter siginfo_t,
    si_signo field and sig parameter in restarting command must match.


    1.x.x Group-stop

    When a (possibly multi-threaded) process receives a stopping signal,
    all threads stop. If some threads are traced, they enter a group-stop.
    Note that stopping signal will first cause signal-delivery-stop (on one
    tracee only), and only after it is injected by tracer (or after it was
    dispatched to a thread which isn't traced), group-stop will be
    initiated on ALL tracees within multi-threaded process. As usual, every
    tracee reports its group-stop to corresponding tracer.

    Group-stop is observed by tracer as waitpid returning with
    WIFSTOPPED(status) == true, WSTOPSIG(status) == signal. The same result
    is returned by some other classes of ptrace-stops, therefore the
    recommended practice is to perform
    ptrace(PTRACE_GETSIGINFO, pid, 0, &siginfo)
    call. The call can be avoided if signal number is not SIGSTOP, SIGTSTP,
    SIGTTIN or SIGTTOU - only these four signals are stopping signals. If
    tracer sees something else, it can't be group-stop. Otherwise, tracer
    needs to call PTRACE_GETSIGINFO. If PTRACE_GETSIGINFO fails, then it is
    definitely a group-stop.

    As of kernel 2.6.38, after tracer sees tracee ptrace-stop and until it
    restarts or kills it, tracee will not run, and will not send
    notifications (except SIGKILL death) to tracer, even if tracer enters
    into another waitpid call.

    Currently, it causes a problem with transparent handling of stopping
    signals: if tracer restarts tracee after group-stop, SIGSTOP is
    effectively ignored: tracee doesn't remain stopped, it runs. If tracer
    doesn't restart tracee before entering into next waitpid, future
    SIGCONT will not be reported to the tracer. Which would make SIGCONT to
    have no effect.


    1.x.x PTRACE_EVENT stops

    If tracer sets TRACE_O_TRACEfoo options, tracee will enter ptrace-stops
    called PTRACE_EVENT stops.

    PTRACE_EVENT stops are observed by tracer as waitpid returning with
    WIFSTOPPED(status) == true, WSTOPSIG(status) == SIGTRAP. Additional bit
    is set in a higher byte of status word: value ((status >> 8) & 0xffff)
    will be (SIGTRAP | PTRACE_EVENT_foo << 8). The following events exist:

    PTRACE_EVENT_VFORK - stop before return from vfork/clone+CLONE_VFORK.
    When tracee is continued after this, it will wait for child to
    exit/exec before continuing its execution (IOW: usual behavior on
    vfork).

    PTRACE_EVENT_FORK - stop before return from fork/clone+SIGCHLD

    PTRACE_EVENT_CLONE - stop before return from clone

    PTRACE_EVENT_VFORK_DONE - stop before return from
    vfork/clone+CLONE_VFORK, but after vfork child unblocked this tracee by
    exiting or exec'ing.

    For all four stops described above: stop occurs in parent, not in newly
    created thread. PTRACE_GETEVENTMSG can be used to retrieve new thread's
    tid.

    PTRACE_EVENT_EXEC - stop before return from exec.

    PTRACE_EVENT_EXIT - stop before exit. PTRACE_GETEVENTMSG returns exit
    status. Registers can be examined (unlike when "real" exit happens).
    The tracee is still alive, it needs to be PTRACE_CONTed to finish exit.

    PTRACE_GETSIGINFO on PTRACE_EVENT stops returns si_signo = SIGTRAP,
    si_code = (event << 8) | SIGTRAP.


    1.x.x Syscall-stops

    If tracee was restarted by PTRACE_SYSCALL, tracee enters
    syscall-enter-stop just prior to entering any syscall. If tracer
    restarts it with PTRACE_SYSCALL, tracee enters syscall-exit-stop when
    syscall is finished, or if it is interrupted by a signal. (That is,
    signal-delivery-stop never happens between syscall-enter-stop and
    syscall-exit-stop, it happens *after* syscall-exit-stop).

    Other possibilities are that tracee may stop in a PTRACE_EVENT stop,
    exit (if it entered exit or exit_group syscall), be killed by SIGKILL,
    or die silently (if execve syscall happened in another thread).

    Syscall-enter-stop and syscall-exit-stop are observed by tracer as
    waitpid returning with WIFSTOPPED(status) == true, WSTOPSIG(status) ==
    SIGTRAP. If PTRACE_O_TRACESYSGOOD option was set by tracer, then
    WSTOPSIG(status) == (SIGTRAP | 0x80).

    There is no portable way to distinguish them from signal-delivery-stop
    with SIGTRAP. Some architectures allow to distinguish them by examining
    registers. For example, on x86 rax = -ENOSYS in syscall-enter-stop.
    Since SIGTRAP (like any other signal) always happens *after*
    syscall-exit-stop, and at this point rax almost never contains -ENOSYS,
    SIGTRAP looks like "syscall-stop which is not syscall-enter-stop", IOW:
    it looks like a "stray syscall-exit-stop" and can be detected this way.
    But such detection is fragile and is best avoided. Using
    PTRACE_O_TRACESYSGOOD option is a recommended method.

    ??? can be distinguished by PTRACE_GETSIGINFO, si_code <= 0 if sent by
    usual suspects like [t]kill, sigqueue; or = SI_KERNEL (0x80) if sent by
    kernel, whereas syscall-stops have si_code = SIGTRAP or (SIGTRAP |
    0x80). Right? Should this be documented?

    Syscall-enter-stop and syscall-exit-stop are indistinguishable from
    each other by tracer. Tracer needs to keep track of the sequence of
    ptrace-stops in order to not misinterpret syscall-enter-stop as
    syscall-exit-stop or vice versa. The rule is that syscall-enter-stop is
    always followed by syscall-exit-stop, PTRACE_EVENT stop or tracee's
    death - no other kinds of ptrace-stop can occur in between.

    If after syscall-enter-stop tracer uses restarting command other than
    PTRACE_SYSCALL, syscall-exit-stop is not generated.

    PTRACE_GETSIGINFO on syscall-stops returns si_signo = SIGTRAP, si_code
    = SIGTRAP or (SIGTRAP | 0x80).


    1.x.x SINGLESTEP, SYSEMU, SYSEMU_SINGLESTEP

    ??? document PTRACE_SINGLESTEP, PTRACE_SYSEMU, PTRACE_SYSEMU_SINGLESTEP


    1.x Informational and restarting ptrace commands.

    Most ptrace commands (all except ATTACH, TRACEME, KILL) require tracee
    to be in ptrace-stop, otherwise they fail with ESRCH.

    When tracee is in ptrace-stop, tracer can read and write data to tracee
    using informational commands. They leave tracee in ptrace-stopped state:

    longv = ptrace(PTRACE_PEEKTEXT/PEEKDATA/PEEKUSER, pid, addr, 0);
    ptrace(PTRACE_POKETEXT/POKEDATA/POKEUSER, pid, addr, long_val);
    ptrace(PTRACE_GETREGS/GETFPREGS, pid, 0, &struct);
    ptrace(PTRACE_SETREGS/SETFPREGS, pid, 0, &struct);
    ptrace(PTRACE_GETSIGINFO, pid, 0, &siginfo);
    ptrace(PTRACE_SETSIGINFO, pid, 0, &siginfo);
    ptrace(PTRACE_GETEVENTMSG, pid, 0, &long_var);
    ptrace(PTRACE_SETOPTIONS, pid, 0, PTRACE_O_flags);

    Note that some errors are not reported. For example, setting siginfo
    may have no effect in some ptrace-stops, yet the call may succeed
    (return 0 and don't set errno).

    ptrace(PTRACE_SETOPTIONS, pid, 0, PTRACE_O_flags) affects one tracee.
    Current flags are replaced. Flags are inherited by new tracees created
    and "auto-attached" via active PTRACE_O_TRACE[V]FORK or
    PTRACE_O_TRACECLONE options.

    Another group of commands makes ptrace-stopped tracee run. They have
    the form:
    ptrace(PTRACE_cmd, pid, 0, sig);
    where cmd is CONT, DETACH, SYSCALL, SINGLESTEP, SYSEMU, or
    SYSEMU_SINGLESTEP. If tracee is in signal-delivery-stop, sig is the
    signal to be injected. Otherwise, sig may be ignored.


    1.x Attaching and detaching

    A thread can be attached to tracer using ptrace(PTRACE_ATTACH, pid, 0,
    0) call. This also sends SIGSTOP to this thread. If tracer wants this
    SIGSTOP to have no effect, it needs to suppress it. Note that if other
    signals are concurrently sent to this thread during attach, tracer may
    see tracee enter signal-delivery-stop with other signal(s) first! The
    usual practice is to reinject these signals until SIGSTOP is seen, then
    suppress SIGSTOP injection. The design bug here is that attach and
    concurrent SIGSTOP are racing and SIGSTOP may be lost.

    ??? Describe how to attach to a thread which is already group-stopped.

    Since attaching sends SIGSTOP and tracer usually suppresses it, this
    may cause stray EINTR return from the currently executing syscall in
    the tracee, as described in "signal injection and suppression" section.

    ptrace(PTRACE_TRACEME, 0, 0, 0) request turns current thread into a
    tracee. It continues to run (doesn't enter ptrace-stop). A common
    practice is follow ptrace(PTRACE_TRACEME) with raise(SIGSTOP) and allow
    parent (which is our tracer now) to observe our signal-delivery-stop.

    If PTRACE_O_TRACE[V]FORK or PTRACE_O_TRACECLONE options are in effect,
    then children created by (vfork or clone(CLONE_VFORK)), (fork or
    clone(SIGCHLD)) and (other kinds of clone) respectively are
    automatically attached to the same tracer which traced their parent.
    SIGSTOP is delivered to them, causing them to enter
    signal-delivery-stop after they exit syscall which created them.

    Detaching of tracee is performed by ptrace(PTRACE_DETACH, pid, 0, sig).
    PTRACE_DETACH is a restarting operation, therefore it requires tracee
    to be in ptrace-stop. If tracee is in signal-delivery-stop, signal can
    be injected. Othervice, sig parameter may be silently ignored.

    If tracee is running when tracer wants to detach it, the usual solution
    is to send SIGSTOP (using tgkill, to make sure it goes to the correct
    thread), wait for tracee to stop in signal-delivery-stop for SIGSTOP
    and then detach it (suppressing SIGSTOP injection). Design bug is that
    this can race with concurrent SIGSTOPs. Another complication is that
    tracee may enter other ptrace-stops and needs to be restarted and
    waited for again, until SIGSTOP is seen. Yet another complication is to
    be sure that tracee is not already group-stopped, because no signal
    delivery happens while it is - not even SIGSTOP.

    ??? is above accurate?

    ??? Describe how to detach from a group-stopped tracee so that it
    doesn't run, but continues to wait for SIGCONT.

    If tracer dies, all tracees are automatically detached and restarted,
    unless they were in group-stop. Handling of restart from group-stop is
    currently buggy, but "as planned" behavior is to leave tracee stopped
    and waiting for SIGCONT. If tracee is restarted from
    signal-delivery-stop, pending signal is injected.


    1.x execve under ptrace.

    During execve, kernel destroys all other threads in the process, and
    resets execve'ing thread tid to tgid (process id). This looks very
    confusing to tracers:

    All other threads "disappear" - that is, they terminate their execution
    without returning any waitpid notifications to anyone, even if they are
    currently traced.

    The execve-ing tracee changes its pid while it is in execve syscall.
    (Remember, under ptrace 'pid' returned from waitpid, or fed into ptrace
    calls, is tracee's tid). That is, pid is reset to process id, which
    coincides with thread group leader tid.

    If thread group leader has reported its death by this time, for tracer
    this looks like dead thread leader "reappears from nowhere". If thread
    group leader was still alive, for tracer this may look as if thread
    group leader returns from a different syscall than it entered, or even
    "returned from syscall even though it was not in any syscall". If
    thread group leader was not traced (or was traced by a different
    tracer), during execve it will appear as if it has become a tracee of
    the tracer of execve'ing tracee. All these effects are the artifacts of
    pid change.

    PTRACE_O_TRACEEXEC option is the recommended tool for dealing with this
    case. It enables PTRACE_EVENT_EXEC stop which occurs before execve
    syscall return.

    Pid change happens before PTRACE_EVENT_EXEC stop, not after.

    When tracer receives PTRACE_EVENT_EXEC stop notification, it is
    guaranteed that except this tracee, no other threads from the process
    are alive. Moreover, it is guaranteed that tracer will not receive any
    "buffered" death reports from any of them, even if some threads were
    racing with execve'ing tracee, for example were entering exit syscall.

    On receiving this notification, tracer should clean up all its internal
    data structures about all threads of this process, and retain only one
    data structure, one which describes single still running tracee, with
    pid = tgid = process id.

    ??? How tracer knows which of its many tracees _are_ threads of that
    particular process? (It may trace more than one process; it may even
    don't keep track of its tracees' thread group relations at all...)

    ??? what happens if two threads execve at the same time? Clearly, only
    one of them succeeds, but *which* one? Think "strace -f" or
    multi-threaded process here:

    ** we get death notification: leader died: **
    PID0 exit(0) = ?
    ** we get syscall-entry-stop in thread 1: **
    PID1 execve("/bin/foo", "foo" <unfinished ...>
    ** we get syscall-entry-stop in thread 2: **
    PID2 execve("/bin/bar", "bar" <unfinished ...>
    ** we get PTRACE_EVENT_EXEC for PID0, we issue PTRACE_SYSCALL **
    ** we get syscall-exit-stop for PID0: **
    PID0 <... execve resumed> ) = 0

    ??? Question: WHICH execve succeeded? Can tracer figure it out?

    If PTRACE_O_TRACEEXEC option is NOT in effect for the execve'ing
    tracee, kernel delivers an extra SIGTRAP to tracee after execve syscall
    returns. This is an ordinary signal (similar to one which can be
    generated by "kill -TRAP"), not a special kind of ptrace-stop.
    GETSIGINFO on it has si_code = 0 (SI_USER). It can be blocked by signal
    mask, and thus can happen (much) later.

    Usually, tracer (for example, strace) would not want to show this extra
    post-execve SIGTRAP signal to the user, and would suppress its delivery
    to the tracee (if SIGTRAP is set to SIG_DFL, it is a killing signal).
    However, determining *which* SIGTRAP to suppress is not easy. Setting
    PTRACE_O_TRACEEXEC option and thus suppressing this extra SIGTRAP is
    the recommended approach.


    1.x Real parent

    Ptrace API (ab)uses standard Unix parent/child signaling over waitpid.
    This used to cause real parent of the process to stop receiving several
    kinds of waitpid notifications when child process is traced by some
    other process.

    Many of these bugs have been fixed, but as of 2.6.38 several still
    exist.

    As of 2.6.38, the following is believed to work correctly:

    - exit/death by signal is reported first to tracer, then, when tracer
    consumes waitpid result, to real parent (to real parent only when the
    whole multi-threaded process exits). If they are the same process, the
    report is sent only once.

    - ??? add more docs

    Following bugs still exist:

    - group-stop notifications are sent to tracer, but not to real parent.

    - If thread group leader it is traced and exits, do_wait(WEXITED)
    doesn't work (until all threads exit) for its the tracer.

    ??? add more known bugs here



    2. Linux kernel implementation

    TODO


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