ptrace in unix tracing non-child processes

[Ron Holt]

In article <352 at tandem.UUCP> narayan at tandem.UUCP (Narayan Mohanram) writes:
>Has any one considered implementing a `xptrace ()' which can 
>debug non-child processes. This will get one the ability to
>debug processes such as daemons that are already running.

We've extended the existing ptrace() call to support tracing of arbitrary
processes in ICON/UX (our version of 4.xBSD and SVRx).  The debuggers
adb, sdb and dbx have been modified to take advantage of this.  I
believe Sun has done something similar.  There's no need to invent a
new system call; just extend the existing one.  The time spent in
implementing this functionality has been amply repaid in the ability to
debug non-child processes.

-- 
Ron Holt                     UUCP: {ihnp4,uunet,caeco,nrc-ut}!iconsys!ron
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