Trace of executed programs called by a Bash script

Question

A script is misbehaving. I need to know who calls that script, and who calls the calling script, and so on, only by modifying the misbehaving script.

This is similar to a stack-trace, but I am not interested in a call stack of function calls within a single bash script. Instead, I need the chain of executed programs/scripts that is initiated by my script.

Answer 1

A simple script I wrote some days ago...

# FILE       : sctrace.sh # LICENSE    : GPL v2.0 (only) # PURPOSE    : print the recursive callers' list for a script #              (sort of a process backtrace) # USAGE      : [in a script] source sctrace.sh # # TESTED ON  : # - Linux, x86 32-bit, Bash 3.2.39(1)-release  # REFERENCES: # [1]: http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/internalvariables.html#PROCCID # [2]: http://linux.die.net/man/5/proc # [3]: http://linux.about.com/library/cmd/blcmdl1_tac.htm  #! /bin/bash  TRACE="" CP=$$ # PID of the script itself [1]  while true # safe because "all starts with init..." do         CMDLINE=$(cat /proc/$CP/cmdline)         PP=$(grep PPid /proc/$CP/status | awk '{ print $2; }') # [2]         TRACE="$TRACE [$CP]:$CMDLINE\n"         if [ "$CP" == "1" ]; then # we reach 'init' [PID 1] => backtrace end                 break         fi         CP=$PP done echo "Backtrace of '$0'" echo -en "$TRACE" | tac | grep -n ":" # using tac to "print in reverse" [3] 

... and a simple test.

I hope you like it.