Linux

The purpose of running strace on gnome is to show you all the components that run, signal, write to get to the shutdown, places where you could definitely intercept the process and hold it up while the DB update occurs (unless you figure a way to not need the db update).

the question is: what i have to put in strace for debug gnome shutdown process?

I don't understend why if replace the original /sbin/shutdown with a wrapper that insert a delay first then execute /sbin/shutdown.bin (original executable) don't work...

strace will show you how it achieves shutdown without going there.

i am confused...

can you simple get an example of how understand the shutdown with strace?
thanks

strace programname 2> logfile

or, to debug a program that's already running:

strace -ppid 2> logfile

You might need options for following forks and threads, arguments and environment, if it is like truss and tusc. I'd look at the man page through the link above, but I have no LINUX most days lately.

You can usually trace running processes with a pid, and maybe an option, maybe last. It requires your be root or the process owner, and gets scraped off by setuid/sergid exec().

Sorry if I'm interrupting, but why should anyone want to trace and/or modify the way GNOME behaves for an issue like this. GNOME will probably signal init directly, just like shutdown, but without calling the shutdown binary. So the most sensible way, since the script is already started by init, would be to stop it using init too.