I do quite a lot of software development (see http://stunnel.mirt.net/) on my Linode 160 running Debian sarge.

Usually I use strace(1) to diagnose some weird problems, but it doesn't work on Linode:

# uname -a
Linux linode 2.6.17-rc2-linode19 #1 Wed Apr 26 17:31:10 EDT 2006 i686 GNU/Linux
# strace ls
execve("/bin/ls", ["ls"], [/* 14 vars */]) = 0
file1 file2 file3
#

I guess ptrace(2) is disabled for some reason. Can you enable this functionality?

You're on one of the few hosts that's running an old kernel with this bug. Submit a support ticket to be moved to a different host, where strace will work.

-Chris

Are there any drawbacks of moving to another machine? Will I keep my IP address? What is the expected downtime?

Everything moves with you (IPs, disk images, configs, etc). You can press The One Button to start the migration when you're ready (after we configure it). I'd expect a few minutes per GB to transfer your disk images across.

-Chris

Thank you.

It worked. I can use strace, now!