xref: /openbsd/lib/libc/sys/acct.2 (revision 73471bf0)
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31.\"     @(#)acct.2	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93
32.\"
33.Dd $Mdocdate: January 3 2021 $
34.Dt ACCT 2
35.Os
36.Sh NAME
37.Nm acct
38.Nd enable or disable process accounting
39.Sh SYNOPSIS
40.In unistd.h
41.Ft int
42.Fn acct "const char *file"
43.Sh DESCRIPTION
44The
45.Fn acct
46call enables or disables the collection of system accounting records.
47If
48.Fa file
49is
50.Dv NULL ,
51accounting is disabled.
52If
53.Fa file
54is an existing, NUL-terminated pathname, record collection is enabled.
55For every process initiated which terminates under normal conditions or
56misbehaves in very specific ways (e.g. file access prevented by unveil),
57an accounting record is appended to
58.Fa file .
59Abnormal conditions of termination are reboots or other
60fatal system problems.
61.Fn acct
62is only available on kernels compiled with the
63.Cm ACCOUNTING
64option.
65.Pp
66For more information on the record structure used by
67.Fn acct ,
68see
69.Pa /usr/include/sys/acct.h
70and
71.Xr acct 5 .
72.Pp
73This call is permitted only to the superuser.
74.Sh NOTES
75Accounting is automatically disabled when the file system the
76accounting file resides on runs out of space; it is enabled when
77space once again becomes available.
78.Sh RETURN VALUES
79.Rv -std
80.Sh ERRORS
81.Fn acct
82will fail if one of the following is true:
83.Bl -tag -width Er
84.It Bq Er EPERM
85The caller is not the superuser.
86.It Bq Er ENOTDIR
87A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
88.It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG
89A component of a pathname exceeded
90.Dv NAME_MAX
91characters, or an entire pathname (including the terminating NUL)
92exceeded
93.Dv PATH_MAX
94bytes.
95.It Bq Er ENOENT
96The named file does not exist.
97.It Bq Er EACCES
98Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix,
99or the pathname is not a regular file.
100.It Bq Er ELOOP
101Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
102.It Bq Er EROFS
103The named file resides on a read-only file system.
104.It Bq Er EFAULT
105.Fa file
106points outside the process's allocated address space.
107.It Bq Er EIO
108An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
109.El
110.Sh SEE ALSO
111.Xr acct 5 ,
112.Xr accton 8 ,
113.Xr sa 8
114.Sh HISTORY
115An
116.Fn acct
117function call appeared in
118.At v7 .
119