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).

On error −1 is returned.  The file must exist and the call may be exercised only by the superuser.  It is erroneous to try to turn on accounting when it is already on. 

DIAGNOSTICS

Acct will fail if one of the following is true:

[EACCES] File is not a regular file. 

[EBUSY] An attempt is made to turn on accounting when it is already on. 

[EFAULT] File points outside the process’s allocated address space. 

[ENOENT] The named file does not exist. 

[ENOTDIR] A component of the path prefix is not a directory. 

[EPERM] The caller is not the superuser. 

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

RESTRICTIONS

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

SEE ALSO

acct(5), sa(1)

ASSEMBLER

(acct = 51.) 
sys acct; file