---
name: "syscount-bpfcc"
section: "8"
platform: "linux"
package: "bpfcc-tools"
version: "0.31.0+ds-7"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/syscount-bpfcc"
---

# syscount-bpfcc(8)

Summarize syscall counts and latencies.

## NAME

syscount - Summarize syscall counts and latencies.

## SYNOPSIS

**syscount \[-h\] \[-p PID\] \[-t TID\] \[-c PPID\] \[-i INTERVAL\] \[-d DURATION\] \[-T TOP\] \[-x\] \[-e ERRNO\] \[-L\] \[-m\] \[-P\] \[-l\] \[--syscall SYSCALL\]**

## DESCRIPTION

This tool traces syscall entry and exit tracepoints and summarizes either the number of syscalls of each type, or the number of syscalls per process. It can also collect latency (invocation time) for each syscall or each process.

Since this uses BPF, only the root user can use this tool.

## REQUIREMENTS

CONFIG\_BPF and bcc. Linux 4.7+ is required to attach a BPF program to the raw\_syscalls:sys\_{enter,exit} tracepoints, used by this tool.

## OPTIONS

- \-h

  Print usage message.

- \-p PID

  Trace only this process.

- \-t TID

  Trace only this thread.

- \-c PPID

  Trace only child of this pid.

- \-i INTERVAL

  Print the summary at the specified interval (in seconds).

- \-d DURATION

  Total duration of trace (in seconds).

- \-T TOP

  Print only this many entries. Default: 10.

- \-x

  Trace only failed syscalls (i.e., the return value from the syscall was \< 0).

- \-e ERRNO

  Trace only syscalls that failed with that error (e.g. -e EPERM or -e 1).

- \-m

  Display times in milliseconds. Default: microseconds.

- \-P

  Summarize by process and not by syscall.

- \-l

  List the syscalls recognized by the tool (hard-coded list). Syscalls beyond this list will still be displayed, as "\[unknown: nnn\]" where nnn is the syscall number.

- \--syscall SYSCALL

  Trace this syscall only (use option -l to get all recognized syscalls).

## EXAMPLES

- Summarize all syscalls by syscall:

  \# **syscount**

- Summarize all syscalls by process:

  \# **syscount -P**

- Summarize only failed syscalls:

  \# **syscount -x**

- Summarize only syscalls that failed with EPERM:

  \# **syscount -e EPERM**

- Trace PID 181 only:

  \# **syscount -p 181**

- Summarize syscalls counts and latencies:

  \# **syscount -L**

## FIELDS

- PID

  Process ID

- COMM

  Process name

- SYSCALL

  Syscall name, or "\[unknown: nnn\]" for syscalls that aren't recognized

- COUNT

  The number of events

- TIME

  The total elapsed time (in us or ms)

## OVERHEAD

For most applications, the overhead should be manageable if they perform 1000's or even 10,000's of syscalls per second. For higher rates, the overhead may become considerable. For example, tracing a loop of 4 million calls to geteuid(), slows it down by 1.85x when tracing only syscall counts, and slows it down by more than 5x when tracing syscall counts and latencies. However, this represents a rate of \>3.5 million syscalls per second, which should not be typical.

## SOURCE

This is from bcc.

-

  https://github.com/iovisor/bcc

Also look in the bcc distribution for a companion \_examples.txt file containing example usage, output, and commentary for this tool.

## OS

Linux

## STABILITY

Unstable - in development.

## AUTHOR

Sasha Goldshtein, Rocky Xing

## SEE ALSO

[funccount(8)](/funccount/8.md), [ucalls(8)](/ucalls/8.md), argdist(8), [trace(8)](/trace/8.md), funclatency(8)