strace and network protocols

[Richard Kettlewell]

Richard Kettlewell <rjk at terraraq.org.uk> writes:

[...]
> So, a useful feature for strace might be to be able to mark certain
> FDs for decoding according to a chosen protocol, and have
> human-readable packet contents appear in the strace output.
> 
> DNS need not be the only protocol so supported, but it would be the
> first one I'd find useful.  Plain-text protocols such as SMTP don't
> need any special support, of course.
> 
> Any thoughts?  If I were to take the time to implement this feature,
> would it be likely to be included?

I went and implemented this last night anyway, though practically all
the code is non-strace-specific and I have an additional use for it in
mind, so I don't feel I'll have wasted any time if the answer is "this
will never be included in strace".

I'll probably send a full patch sometime this evening, if I get a
chance to test it a bit more (not certain, since we'll probably be
reconfiguring the computer room).

If anyone is interested the generic part of the change is at
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/ucgi/~richardk/cvsweb/dns/
but this does not include the strace integration!

ttfn/rjk