Open Source Software

acct(2)



NAME

   acct - switch process accounting on or off

SYNOPSIS

   #include <unistd.h>

   int acct(const char *filename);

   Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):

   acct():
       Since glibc 2.21:
           _DEFAULT_SOURCE
       In glibc 2.19 and 2.20:
           _DEFAULT_SOURCE || (_XOPEN_SOURCE && _XOPEN_SOURCE < 500)
       Up to and including glibc 2.19:
           _BSD_SOURCE || (_XOPEN_SOURCE && _XOPEN_SOURCE < 500)

DESCRIPTION

   The  acct()  system  call  enables  or disables process accounting.  If
   called with the name of an existing file as its argument, accounting is
   turned  on,  and  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,  or  search
          permission  is  denied  for  one  of the directories in the path
          prefix of filename (see also path_resolution(7)), or 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.

   ENFILE The system-wide limit on the total number of open files has been
          reached.

   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
          controlling 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 insufficient privilege to enable process
          accounting.  On Linux, the CAP_SYS_PACCT capability is required.

   EROFS  filename refers to a file on a read-only filesystem.

   EUSERS There are no more free file structures or we ran out of memory.

CONFORMING TO

   SVr4, 4.3BSD (but not POSIX).

NOTES

   No accounting is produced for programs  running  when  a  system  crash
   occurs.   In  particular,  nonterminating processes are never accounted
   for.

   The structure  of  the  records  written  to  the  accounting  file  is
   described in acct(5).

SEE ALSO

   acct(5)

COLOPHON

   This  page  is  part of release 4.09 of the Linux man-pages project.  A
   description of the project, information about reporting bugs,  and  the
   latest     version     of     this    page,    can    be    found    at
   https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.



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