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ACCT(2)                     BSD System Calls Manual                    ACCT(2)

NAME
     acct -- enable or disable process accounting

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.

RETURN VALUES
     The acct() function returns the value 0 if successful; otherwise the value -1 is returned and the
     global variable errno is set to indicate the error.  The file must exist and the call may be exercised
     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} characters, or an entire path name
                        exceeded {PATH_MAX} 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)

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

4th Berkeley Distribution        June 4, 1993        4th Berkeley Distribution