Tracing Linux commands using Python

Question

I have a Python script which uses os.system() to call certain commands an Linux machine.

These commands might be standard commands such as ls , grep etc., or some custom commands present on that machine.

I want to trace what syscalls get called by these commands, but within the Python script itself. So, once I do:

os.system(command) 

I want to return a list of all system calls made by that particular command.

So that I can iterate over the list and filter for any syscalls I need to investigate. Ideally, what I am planning to do is create a dictionary which will help me map the parameters that I gave to my command above, and what went in to the syscall eventually.

Is there a nice Pythonic way to do this?

Answer 1

Have a look at python p-trace

http://python-ptrace.readthedocs.org/en/latest/syscall.html