xref: /minix3/lib/libc/sys/acct.2 (revision 2fe8fb192fe7e8720e3e7a77f928da545e872a6a)
1.\"	$NetBSD: acct.2,v 1.19 2010/05/31 12:16:20 njoly Exp $
2.\"
3.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1991, 1993
4.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
5.\"
6.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
7.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
8.\" are met:
9.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
10.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
11.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
12.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
13.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
14.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
15.\"    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
16.\"    without specific prior written permission.
17.\"
18.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
19.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
20.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
21.\" ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
22.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
23.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
24.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
25.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
26.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
27.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
28.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
29.\"
30.\"     @(#)acct.2	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93
31.\"
32.Dd June 4, 1993
33.Dt ACCT 2
34.Os
35.Sh NAME
36.Nm acct
37.Nd enable or disable process accounting
38.Sh LIBRARY
39.Lb libc
40.Sh SYNOPSIS
41.In unistd.h
42.Ft int
43.Fn acct "const char *file"
44.Sh DESCRIPTION
45The
46.Fn acct
47call enables or disables the collection of system accounting records.
48If
49.Fa file
50is
51.Dv NULL ,
52accounting is disabled.
53If
54.Fa file
55is an existing, NUL-terminated, pathname, record collection is enabled,
56and for every process initiated which terminates under normal
57conditions an accounting record is appended to
58.Fa file .
59Abnormal conditions of termination are reboots or other fatal system problems.
60Records for processes which never terminate can not be
61produced by
62.Fn acct .
63.Pp
64For more information on the record structure used by
65.Fn acct ,
66see
67.Pa /usr/include/sys/acct.h
68and
69.Xr acct 5 .
70.Pp
71This call is permitted only to the super-user.
72.Sh NOTES
73Accounting is automatically disabled when the file system the
74accounting file resides on runs out of space; it is enabled when
75space once again becomes available.
76For this purpose,
77.Fn acct
78creates a kernel thread called
79.Dq acctwatch .
80.Sh RETURN VALUES
81On success, zero is returned.
82Otherwise, \-1 is returned and
83.Va errno
84is set to indicate the error.
85.Sh ERRORS
86.Fn acct
87will fail if one of the following is true:
88.Bl -tag -width Er
89.It Bq Er EACCES
90Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix,
91or the path name is not a regular file.
92.It Bq Er EFAULT
93.Fa file
94points outside the process's allocated address space.
95.It Bq Er EIO
96An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
97.It Bq Er ELOOP
98Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
99.It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG
100A component of a pathname exceeded
101.Brq Dv NAME_MAX
102characters, or an entire path name exceeded
103.Brq Dv PATH_MAX
104characters.
105.It Bq Er ENOENT
106The named file does not exist.
107.It Bq Er ENOTDIR
108A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
109.It Bq Er EPERM
110The caller is not the super-user.
111.It Bq Er EROFS
112The named file resides on a read-only file system.
113.El
114.Pp
115Also,
116.Fn acct
117fails if failed to create kernel thread described above.
118See
119.Xr fork 2
120for
121.Va errno
122value.
123.Sh SEE ALSO
124.Xr fork 2 ,
125.Xr acct 5 ,
126.Xr sa 8
127.Sh HISTORY
128An
129.Fn acct
130function call appeared in
131.At v7 .
132