acct(2) [bsd man page]
ACCT(2) System Calls Manual ACCT(2) NAME
acct - turn accounting on or off SYNOPSIS
acct(file) char *file; DESCRIPTION
The system is prepared to write a record in an accounting file for each process as it terminates. This call, with a null-terminated string naming an existing file as argument, turns on accounting; records for each terminating process are appended to file. An argument of 0 causes accounting to be turned off. The accounting file format is given in acct(5). This call is permitted only to the super-user. NOTES
Accounting is automatically disabled when the file system the accounting file resides on runs out of space; it is enabled when space once again becomes available. RETURN VALUE
On error -1 is returned. The file must exist and the call may be exercised only by the super-user. It is erroneous to try to turn on accounting when it is already on. ERRORS
Acct will fail if one of the following is true: [EPERM] The caller is not the super-user. [ENOTDIR] A component of the path prefix is not a directory. [EINVAL] The pathname contains a character with the high-order bit set. [ENAMETOOLONG] A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters, or an entire path name exceeded 1023 characters. [ENOENT] The named file does not exist. [EACCES] Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix, or the path name is not a regular file. [ELOOP] Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname. [EROFS] The named file resides on a read-only file system. [EFAULT] File points outside the process's allocated address space. [EIO] An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system. SEE ALSO
acct(5), sa(8) BUGS
No accounting is produced for programs running when a crash occurs. In particular non-terminating programs are never accounted for. 4th Berkeley Distribution May 22, 1986 ACCT(2)
Check Out this Related Man Page
ACCT(2) Linux Programmer's Manual ACCT(2) NAME
acct - switch process accounting on or off SYNOPSIS
#include <unistd.h> int acct(const char *filename); DESCRIPTION
When called with the name of an existing file as argument, accounting is turned on, records for each terminating process are appended to filename as it terminates. An argument of NULL causes accounting to be turned off. RETURN VALUE
On success, zero is returned. On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set appropriately. ERRORS
EACCES Write permission is denied for the specified file. EACCES The argument filename is not a regular file. EFAULT filename points outside your accessible address space. EIO Error writing to the file filename. EISDIR filename is a directory. ELOOP Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving filename. ENAMETOOLONG filename was too long. ENOENT The specified filename does not exist. ENOMEM Out of memory. ENOSYS BSD process accounting has not been enabled when the operating system kernel was compiled. The kernel configuration parameter con- trolling this feature is CONFIG_BSD_PROCESS_ACCT. ENOTDIR A component used as a directory in filename is not in fact a directory. EPERM The calling process has no permission to enable process accounting. EROFS filename refers to a file on a read-only file system. EUSERS There are no more free file structures or we ran out of memory. CONFORMING TO
SVr4 (but not POSIX). SVr4 documents an EBUSY error condition, but no EISDIR or ENOSYS. Also AIX and HPUX document EBUSY (attempt is made to enable accounting when it is already enabled), as does Solaris (attempt is made to enable accounting using the same file that is cur- rently being used). NOTES
No accounting is produced for programs running when a crash occurs. In particular, nonterminating processes are never accounted for. Linux 2.1.126 1998-11-04 ACCT(2)