4.3BSD - /usr/man/cat2/acct.0

ACCT(2)                                                                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 account‐
       ing 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 exer‐
       cised 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)