NAME

acct − enable or disable process accounting

SYNOPSIS

#include <unistd.h>

int acct(const char ∗path);

DESCRIPTION

acct enables or disables the system process accounting routine.  If the routine is enabled, an accounting record will be written in an accounting file for each process that terminates.  The termination of a process can be caused by one of two things: an exit call or a signal [see exit(2) and signal(2)].  The effective user ID of the process calling acct must be superuser. 

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

The accounting routine is enabled if path is non-zero and no errors occur during the system call.  It is disabled if path is (char ∗)NULL and no errors occur during the system call. 

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

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

EBUSY An attempt is being made to enable accounting using the same file that is currently being used. 

EFAULT path points to an illegal address. 

ELOOP Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating path. 

ENAMETOOLONG The length of the path argument exceeds {PATH_MAX}, or the length of a path component exceeds {NAME_MAX} while _POSIX_NO_TRUNC is in effect. 

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

ENOENT One or more components of the accounting file pathname do not exist. 

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

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

SEE ALSO

exit(2), signal(2), acct(4). 

DIAGNOSTICS

Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned. Otherwise, a value of −1 is returned and errno is set to indicate the error.