acct(2) [ultrix man page]
acct(2) System Calls Manual acct(2) Name acct - turn accounting on or off Syntax 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 This call is permitted only to the superuser. 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 Values On error, -1 is returned. The file must exist and the call may be exercised only by the superuser. It is erroneous to try to turn on accounting when it is already on. If successful, 0 is returned. Diagnostics The system call will fail if one of the following is true: [EPERM] The caller is not the superuser. [ENOTDIR] A component of the path prefix is not a directory. [ENAMETOOLONG] A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters, or an entire pathname exceeded 1023 characters. [ENOENT] The named file does not exist. [EACCES] The path name is not a regular file. [EROFS] The named file resides on a read-only file system. [EFAULT] The file points outside the process's allocated address space. [ELOOP] Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname. [EIO] An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system. Restrictions No accounting is produced for programs running when a crash occurs. In particular, nonterminating programs are never accounted for. See Also acct(5), sa(8) acct(2)
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acct(2) System Calls acct(2) NAME
acct - enable or disable process accounting SYNOPSIS
#include <unistd.h> int acct(const char *path); DESCRIPTION
The acct() function enables or disables the system process accounting routine. If the routine is enabled, an accounting record will be written in an accounting file for each process that terminates. The termination of a process can be caused by either an exit(2) call or a signal(3C)). The effective user ID of the process calling acct() must have the appropriate privileges. The path argument points to the pathname of the accounting file, whose file format is described on the acct.h(3HEAD) manual page. The accounting routine is enabled if path is non-zero and no errors occur during the function. It is disabled if path is (char *)NULL and no errors occur during the function. RETURN VALUES
Upon successful completion, 0 is returned. Otherwise, -1 is returned and errno is set to indicate the error. ERRORS
The acct() function will fail if: EACCES The file named by path is not an ordinary file. EBUSY An attempt is being made to enable accounting using the same file that is currently being used. EFAULT The path argument points to an illegal address. ELOOP Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating path. ENAMETOOLONG The length of the path argument exceeds {PATH_MAX}, or the length of a path argument exceeds {NAME_MAX} while _POSIX_NO_TRUNC is in effect. ENOENT One or more components of the accounting file pathname do not exist. ENOTDIR A component of the path prefix is not a directory. EPERM The {PRIV_SYS_ACCT} privilege is not asserted in the effective set of the calling process. EROFS The named file resides on a read-only file system. SEE ALSO
exit(2), acct.h(3HEAD), signal(3C), privileges(5) SunOS 5.11 20 Jan 2003 acct(2)