Strace is a diagnostic, debugging and instructional userspace utility for Linux. It is used to monitor and tamper with interactions between processes and the Linux kernel, which include system calls, signal deliveries, and changes of process state.

$strace ls
execve("/bin/ls", ["ls"], [/* 21 vars */]) = 0
brk(0) = 0x8c31000
access("/etc/ld.so.nohwcap", F_OK) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
mmap2(NULL, 8192, PROT_READ, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0xb78c7000 access("/etc/ld.so.preload", R_OK) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
open("/etc/ld.so.cache", O_RDONLY) = 3
fstat64(3, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=65354, ...}) = 0
...