acct(2)                                                   acct(2)



     NAME
          acct - enable or disable process accounting

     SYNOPSIS
          int acct(path)
          char *path;

     DESCRIPTION
          acct is used to enable or disable the system process ac-
          counting routine.  If the routine is enabled, an accounting
          record will be written on an accounting file for each pro-
          cess that terminates.  Termination can be caused by one of
          two things: an exit call or a signal; see exit(2) and sig-
          nal(3).  The effective user ID of the calling process must
          be superuser to use this call.

          path points to a path name naming the accounting file.  The
          accounting file format is given in acct(4).

          The accounting routine is enabled if path is nonzero and no
          errors occur during the system call.  It is disabled if path
          is zero and no errors occur during the system call.

     RETURN VALUE
          Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned.  Oth-
          erwise, a value of -1 is returned and errno is set to indi-
          cate the error.

     ERRORS
          acct will fail if one or more of the following are true:

          [EPERM]       A pathname contains a character with the
                        high-order bit set.

          [EPERM]       The effective user ID of the calling process
                        is not superuser.

          [ENAMETOOLONG]
                        A component of a pathname exceeded NAME_MAX
                        characters, or an entire pathname exceeded
                        PATH_MAX.

          [ELOOP]       Too many symbolic links were encountered in
                        translating a pathname.

          [EBUSY]       An attempt is being made to enable accounting
                        when it is already enabled.

          [ENOTDIR]     A component of the path prefix is not a direc-
                        tory.

          [ENOENT]      One or more components of the accounting file



     April, 1990                                                     1

     acct(2)                                                   acct(2)



                        path name do not exist.

          [EACCES]      A component of the path prefix denies search
                        permission.

          [EACCES]      The file named by path is not an ordinary
                        file.

          [EACCES]      mode permission is denied for the named ac-
                        counting file.

          [EROFS]       The named file resides on a read-only file
                        system.

          [EFAULT]      path points to an illegal address.

     SEE ALSO
          acct(1M), exit(2), signal(3), acct(4).





































     2                                                     April, 1990