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)
