cctrace

Trace invocations of compiler, linker, and other build tools. cctrace depends on sysdig for Linux.

Prerequisites

On Debian hosts, run prerequisites_deb.sh as root. Alternatively, install sysdig by running:

$ curl -s https://s3.amazonaws.com/download.draios.com/stable/install-sysdig | sudo bash

Assuming pip3 is available, the anytree Python package can be installed via:

# pip3 install anytree

Usage

cctrace is not a wrapper script around build systems. It is instead intended to be run side by side (e.g. in a separate terminal) with a build command like this:

# ./cctrace

The default policy ensures that the host compiler is used and imposes no requirements on the build flags. To enforce another policy, point cctrace to a custom policy using the -p command line flag.

cctrace logs all "interesting" build commands to cctrace.log by default. To see all options, run:

$ ./cctrace --help

Policies

cctrace policies are stored as JSON files. See policy/default.cctrace.json for an example. The top-level configuration items are:

• name: names the policy (string)
• keep_going: stop on policy violation or not (bool)
• c_compiler: configures the C compiler. Subkeys:
  • path: string or list of strings of expected paths
  • args: list of strings of expected arguments
  • compile_args: list of strings of additional arguments when compiler is not linking.
  • link_args: list of strings of additional arguments when compiler is linking.
• cxx_compiler: configures the C++ compiler. Same subkeys as c_compiler.
• linker: configures the linker. Subkeys path and args same format as c_compiler.
• assembler: configures the assembler (as, yasm, nasm) same subkeys as linker.
• archiver: configures the archiver (ar) same subkeys as linker.
• indexer: configures the indexer (ranlib) same subkeys as linker.
• sym_lister: configures the symbol lister (nm) same subkeys as linker.

Acknowledgements and Licensing

This material is available under the BSD-3 style license as found in the LICENSE file.

This material is based upon work supported by the United States Air Force and DARPA under Contract No. FA8750-15-C-0124. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Air Force and DARPA. Distribution Statement A, “Approved for Public Release, Distribution Unlimited.”