How to find which type of system call is used by a program

Question

I am working on x86_64 machine. My linux kernel is also 64 bit kernel. As there are different ways to implement a system call (int 80, syscall, sysenter), i wanted to know what type of system call my machine is using. I am newbie to linux. I have written a demo program.

#include <stdio.h>
int main()
{
  getpid();
  return 0;
}

getpid() does one system call. Can anybody give me a method to find which type of system call will be used by my machine for this program.. Thank you....

Answer 1

victory:~ # gcc getpid.c -o getpid -g
victory:~ # gdb getpid
<snip>
(gdb) break main
Breakpoint 1 at 0x400540: file getpid.c, line 4.
(gdb) run
Starting program: /root/getpid 

Breakpoint 1, main () at getpid.c:4
4     getpid();
(gdb) disassemble
Dump of assembler code for function main:
0x000000000040053c <main+0>:    push   %rbp
0x000000000040053d <main+1>:    mov    %rsp,%rbp
0x0000000000400540 <main+4>:    mov    $0x0,%eax
0x0000000000400545 <main+9>:    callq  0x400440 <getpid@plt>
0x000000000040054a <main+14>:   mov    $0x0,%eax
0x000000000040054f <main+19>:   leaveq 
0x0000000000400550 <main+20>:   retq   
End of assembler dump.

Looks like our call to getpid() is actually a library call. Let's set a breakpoint there and continue.

(gdb) break getpid
Breakpoint 2 at 0x7ffff7b29c00
(gdb) cont
Continuing.

Breakpoint 2, 0x00007ffff7b29c00 in getpid () from /lib64/libc.so.6
(gdb) disassemble
Dump of assembler code for function getpid:
0x00007ffff7b29c00 <getpid+0>:  mov    %fs:0x94,%edx
0x00007ffff7b29c08 <getpid+8>:  cmp    $0x0,%edx
0x00007ffff7b29c0b <getpid+11>: mov    %edx,%eax
0x00007ffff7b29c0d <getpid+13>: jle    0x7ffff7b29c11 <getpid+17>
0x00007ffff7b29c0f <getpid+15>: repz retq 
0x00007ffff7b29c11 <getpid+17>: jne    0x7ffff7b29c1f <getpid+31>
0x00007ffff7b29c13 <getpid+19>: mov    %fs:0x90,%eax
0x00007ffff7b29c1b <getpid+27>: test   %eax,%eax
0x00007ffff7b29c1d <getpid+29>: jne    0x7ffff7b29c0f <getpid+15>
0x00007ffff7b29c1f <getpid+31>: mov    $0x27,%eax
0x00007ffff7b29c24 <getpid+36>: syscall 
0x00007ffff7b29c26 <getpid+38>: test   %edx,%edx
0x00007ffff7b29c28 <getpid+40>: mov    %rax,%rsi
0x00007ffff7b29c2b <getpid+43>: jne    0x7ffff7b29c0f <getpid+15>
0x00007ffff7b29c2d <getpid+45>: mov    %esi,%fs:0x90
0x00007ffff7b29c35 <getpid+53>: mov    %esi,%eax
0x00007ffff7b29c37 <getpid+55>: retq   
End of assembler dump.

Buried in the getpid() library is the syscall assembler instruction. This is an AMD64 instruction that supports a fast context switch to ring0 for the purpose of system calls.

Answer 2

Under linux, you can use strace to record which system calls are made by a particular process.