acct(2)
NAME
acct − turn accounting on or off
SYNTAX
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(.).
This call is permitted only to the super-user. 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 VALUE
On error −1 is returned. The file must exist and the call may be exercised only by the super-user. It is erroneous to try to turn on accounting when it is already on. If successful, 0 is returned.
DIAGNOSTICS
The acct system call 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 255 characters, or an entire pathname exceeded 1023 characters.
[ENOENT]
The named file does not exist.
[EACCES]
The path name is not a regular file.
[EROFS]
The named file resides on a read-only file system.
[EFAULT]
The file points outside the process’s allocated address space.
[ELOOP]
Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
[EIO] An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
RESTRICTIONS
No accounting is produced for programs running when a crash occurs. In particular nonterminating programs are never accounted for.
SEE ALSO
System Calls