IO-Tracer

How it works

Visit IO Tracer documentations for more detail.

Installation

One-line installation

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cacheMon/io-tracer-linux/main/install.sh | sudo bash

The installer clones the repo, installs BCC + the Python dependencies, and sets up the iotrc command. Re-run it any time to update to the latest version.

Manual Installation

1. Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/cacheMon/io-tracer-linux.git
cd io-tracer-linux

2. Install BCC

# Debian
echo deb [http://cloudfront.debian.net/debian](http://cloudfront.debian.net/debian) sid main >> /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt-get install -y bpfcc-tools libbpfcc libbpfcc-dev linux-headers-$(uname -r)

# Ubuntu
sudo apt-get install bpfcc-tools linux-headers-$(uname -r)

# Fedora
sudo dnf install bcc

# Arch
pacman -S bcc bcc-tools python-bcc

For more distros, visit the official BCC's installation guide

3. Finally, install the Python dependencies. The simplest way is to install them all at once from requirements.txt:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Or, if you prefer your distro's package manager:

# Ubuntu / Debian
sudo apt install python3-psutil python3-requests python3-zstandard

# Fedora
sudo dnf install python3-psutil python3-requests python3-zstandard

# Arch
sudo pacman -S python-psutil python-requests python-zstandard

zstandard is used to compress trace logs (.zst). If it is missing the tracer still runs and falls back to gzip (.gz) using the Python standard library, but installing zstandard is recommended for faster, smaller output. To run the test suite you'll also need pytest (pip install pytest).

Usage

usage: sudo iotrc [-h] [-v] [-a] [--cache] [--network] [--computer-id] [--reward] [--no-upload] {dev} ...

Trace IO syscalls

options:
  -h, --help       show this help message and exit
  -v, --verbose    Print verbose output
  -a, --anonimize  Enable anonymization of process and file names
  --computer-id    Print this machine ID and exit
  --reward         Show your reward code (unlocked after uploading traces)
  --no-upload      Disable automatic upload of traces (for testing)

subcommands:
  {dev}            Run in developer mode with extra logs and checks
                   (supports --trace-bucket NAME to override the upload bucket)

Trace Types

Internal documentation on trace types and collection methods is available in docs/TRACE_TYPES.md.

Use as a service

We provided a simple bash script that installs and enable IO Traces as a service. Feel free to tinker with it and suit it to your best needs!

Usage: sudo bash ./scripts/install_service.sh {install|uninstall|status|start|stop|restart|logs}

Options:
  install      Install and enable the service
  uninstall    Stop and remove the service
  status       Show service status
  start        Start the service now
  stop         Stop the service
  restart      Restart the service
  logs         View live service logs

Uninstall

Run the uninstaller from your local repo:

sudo bash ~/io-tracer/uninstall.sh

This will:

• Remove the iotrc binary from /usr/local/bin
• Optionally delete the cloned repo at ~/io-tracer (you'll be prompted)