Strace
http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/strace.1.html
http://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2014-05-11/strace-wow-much-syscall.html
http://www.brendangregg.com/blog/2016-06-14/ubuntu-xenial-bcc-bpf.html
Since the following appear to lack overhead warnings, I added a confirmation box on the links:
- The Magic of Strace (2014)
- Debugging obscure Postgres problems with strace (2013)
- Using strace to Debug Stuck Celery Tasks (2013)
- Diagnosing Magento speed issues with strace (2012)
- Strace -- The Sysadmin's Microscope (2010)
- strace: for fun, profit, and debugging. (2008)
- Introducing strace - a System call tracing and Signal reporting tool (2008)
- 5 simple ways to troubleshoot using Strace (2008)
These can be useful as they show case studies for real issues, and also provide different perspectives based on each author's area of interest and expertise for applying strace.
If you'd like to learn more about strace internals and ptrace(), I recommend:
Beyond strace
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strace
http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2011/11/strace-examples/
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/174942/how-should-strace-be-used
http://hokstad.com/5-simple-ways-to-troubleshoot-using-strace
http://www.aboutlinux.info/2006/05/strace-very-powerful-troubleshooting.html
https://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-strace-command-examples.html