acct(2) - NetBSD Manual Pages

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ACCT(2)                   NetBSD System Calls Manual                   ACCT(2)


NAME

     acct -- enable or disable process accounting


LIBRARY

     Standard C Library (libc, -lc)


SYNOPSIS

     #include <unistd.h>

     int
     acct(const char *file);


DESCRIPTION

     The acct() call enables or disables the collection of system accounting
     records.  If the argument file is a nil pointer, accounting is disabled.
     If file is an existing pathname (null-terminated), record collection is
     enabled and for every process initiated which terminates under normal
     conditions an accounting record is appended to file.  Abnormal conditions
     of termination are reboots or other fatal system problems.  Records for
     processes which never terminate can not be produced by acct().

     For more information on the record structure used by acct(), see
     /usr/include/sys/acct.h and 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.  For this purpose, acct() creates a kernel thread
     called ``acctwatch''.


RETURN VALUES

     On error -1 is returned.  The file must exist and the call may be exer-
     cised only by the super-user.


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.

     [ENAMETOOLONG]     A component of a pathname exceeded {NAME_MAX} charac-
                        ters, or an entire path name exceeded {PATH_MAX} char-
                        acters.

     [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 translat-
                        ing 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.
     Also, acct() fails if failed to create kernel thread described above.
     See fork(2) for errno value.


SEE ALSO

     fork(2), acct(5), sa(8)


HISTORY

     An acct() function call appeared in Version 7 AT&T UNIX.

NetBSD 4.0                       June 4, 1993                       NetBSD 4.0