*** UNIX MANUAL PAGE BROWSER ***

acct(8) System Manager's Manual acct(8) NAME acct, chargefee, ckpacct, dodisk, lastlogin, monacct, nulladm, prctmp, prdaily, prtacct, remove, shutacct, startup, turnacct - Provide ac- counting commands for shell scripts SYNOPSIS chargefee User Number ckpacct [BlockSize] dodisk [-o] [File ....] lastlogin monacct [Number] nulladm [File ....] prctmp File .... prdaily [[-l] mdd]] | [-c] prtacct [-f Specification] [-v] File ['Heading'] remove shutacct ['Reason'] startup turnacct on | off | switch DESCRIPTION There are a number of commands in the /usr/sbin/acct directory that, along with other accounting commands, enable you to produce a wide range of system accounting records and files. For example, the runacct script invokes some accounting commands and enables you to produce daily accounting records and files. Some of the commands in the acct directory are invoked when active accounting files become too large, and other commands can be used by a system administrator to perform pe- riodic accounting operations. Daily and monthly accounting reports can be produced by specifying com- mands in the /usr/var/spool/cron/crontabs directory, which are processed by the cron daemon. These accounting reports consist of a collection of records that are produced at the end of any process and on a daily and monthly periodic basis. You can specify a prime-time period for any 24-hour weekday. Prime- time hours are those contiguous hours of a weekday for which premium fees might be charged for resource use. Nonprime-time hours are those contiguous hours that are not defined as prime time. Nonprime time also includes weekends and any holidays listed in the file /usr/sbin/acct/holidays. When you set up accounting, you can include entries in the /usr/spool/cron/crontabs/adm file to run the following accounting com- mands: The ckpacct command checks the size of the /var/adm/pacct process accounting files. The runacct command includes other account- ing shell scripts and commands and creates daily and monthly accounting files. The monacct command produces monthly summary accounting files in the /var/adm/acct/fiscal accounting subdirectory from the daily ac- counting files. In addition, you can include the dodisk command in the /usr/spool/cron/crontabs/root file. The dodisk command creates disk usage accounting records. The accounting commands are as follows: The chargefee command is used by the system administrator to charge the number of units specified by the Number parameter to the login name specified by the User parameter. The Number value may be an integer or a decimal value. The chargefee command writes a record to the /var/adm/fee file. This information is then merged with other accounting records with the acctmerg command to create a daily /var/adm/fee report. The chargefee command uses the printpw command to get the list of all users stored in the password database. The ckpacct com- mand is used to check the size of the active process accounting file, /var/adm/pacct. Normally, the cron daemon processes this command from the crontabs file. When the size of the active data files exceeds the number of blocks specified by the Block- Size parameter, the ckpacct command is used to invoke the tur- nacct switch command to turn off process accounting. The default value for the BlockSize parameter is 500. When the number of free disk blocks in the var file system falls below 500, the ckpacct command is used to inhibit process ac- counting by invoking the turnacct off command. When at least 500 free disk blocks are again available, account processing is reactivated. This feature is sensitive to how frequently ckpacct is run. When the environment variable MAILCOM is set to mail root adm, a mail message is sent to the super-user (root) and to adm in case of an error. The dodisk command initiates disk-usage accounting by calling the diskusg command and the acctdisk command. When you specify the -o flag with the dodisk command, a more thorough but slower version of disk accounting by login direc- tory is initiated with the acctdusg command. Normally, the cron daemon runs the dodisk command. The following flag may be used with the dodisk command: Calls the acctdusg command instead of the diskusg command to initiate disk accounting by login direc- tory. By default, the dodisk command does disk accounting on special files recorded in the /etc/fstab file. But when you specify file names with the File parameter, disk accounting is done on only those files. When you do not specify the -o flag, the File parameter should specify special file names of mountable file systems. When you specify both -o and one or more File(s), File(s) should specify mount points of mounted file systems. The lastlogin command up- dates the /var/adm/acct/sum/loginlog file to show the last date each user logged in. Normally, the runacct procedure, running under the cron daemon, calls this command and adds the informa- tion to the daily report; however, the lastlogin command can also be entered by the system administrator. The lastlogin com- mand uses the printpw command to get a list of all users whose name and user ID are stored in the password database file. The monacct command collects daily or other periodic accounting records into summary files in the /var/adm/acct/fiscal subdirec- tory. After monthly summary files are produced, monacct removes the old accounting files from the /var/adm/acct/sum subdirectory and replaces them with the newly created summary files. The cron daemon should run this command once each month on the first day of the following month or some other specified day after all the dailies have been produced. (The monacct example shows how to enter this command for the cron daemon.) The Number parameter is a numerical value in the range 1 < n < 12 (where n is the month) that indicates the month for which daily files are processed. The default value used for the Number parameter is the current month. The monacct command stores the newly created summary files in the /var/adm/acct/fiscal subdi- rectory and restarts new summary files in /var/adm/acct/sum, the cumulative summaries to which daily record summaries are ap- pended. The nulladm command creates the file specified in the File parameter, gives read (r) and write (w) permissions to the file owner and group, read (r) permission to other users, and ensures that the file owner and group is adm. Various account- ing shell procedures invoke the nulladm command. The system ad- ministrator uses this command to set up active data files, such as the /var/adm/wtmp file. The system administrator may use the prctmp command to output the session record file specified by File and created by the acctcon1 command (this is normally the /var/adm/acct/nite/ctmp file). The prdaily command is invoked from the runacct shell procedure to format an ASCII file of the accounting data of the previous day. The records making up this file are located in the /var/adm/acct/sum/rprtmmdd files, where mmdd is the month and day for which the file is produced. Use the mmdd parameter to specify a date other than the current day. The following flags may be used with the prdaily command: Re- ports exceptional resource usage by command. May be used only on accounting records for the current day. Reports exceptional us- age by login ID for the specified date. The prtacct command formats and displays any total accounting file specified by the File parameter; records for these files are defined by a type tacct structure in the tacct.h include file. You can enter the prtacct command to output any tacct file to the default output device. For example, you may output a daily report keyed to con- nect time, to process time, to disk usage, and to printer usage. To specify a title for the report, specify a name for the Head- ing parameter with enclosed single or double quotes. The follow- ing flags may be used with the prtacct command: Selects type tacct structure members to be output, using the structure-member selection mechanism specified for the acctmerg command. Pro- duces verbose output in which more precise notation is used for floating-point numbers. Specifies a heading for report members. The type tacct structure defines a total accounting record for- mat, parts of which are used by various accounting commands. Members of the type tacct structure whose data types are speci- fied as an array of two double elements have both prime-time and nonprime-time values. The type tacct structure has the following members. User ID. A field for the login name with the same number of characters NSZ as the ut_user member of the utmp structure. Cumulative CPU time in minutes. Cumulative K-core time in minutes. Cumulative number of characters transferred in blocks of 512 bytes. Cumulative number of blocks read and writ- ten. Cumulative connect time in minutes. Cumulative disk-usage time in minutes. Queuing system (printer) fee in number of pages. Special services fee expressed in units. A count of the number of processes. A count of the number of login sessions. A count of the number of disk samples. The remove command deletes all /var/adm/acct/sum/wtmp*, /var/adm/acct/sum/pacct*, and /var/adm/acct/nite/lock* files as part of the daily cleanup procedure called by the runacct command. The shutacct command turns process accounting off and adds a 'Reason' record to the /var/adm/wtmp file. This command is usually invoked during a system shutdown. The startup command turns on the accounting functions and adds a reason record to the /var/adm/wtmp file. Usually the startup command is invoked by the /sbin/init.d/acct script when the system is started up. The turnacct command pro- vides an interface to the accton command to turn process ac- counting on or off, or to create a new /var/adm/pacctn process accounting file. This command can be executed only by a supe- ruser or by the adm login name. Only one of the arguments on, off, or switch may be used: Turns process accounting on. Turns process accounting off. The switch flag is used to create a new /var/adm/pacctn file when the current /var/adm/pacctn file is too large. The suffix n (where n is a positive integer) indi- cates the previous active /var/adm/pacctn file. After the cur- rently active /var/adm/pacctn file is renamed, a new active /var/adm/pacct file is created and process accounting is restarted. This command is usually called by the ckpacct command, running under the cron daemon, to keep the active pacct data file down to a manageable size. NOTES You should not share accounting files among nodes in a distributed en- vironment. Each node should have its own copy of the various account- ing files. When you are also using the sa command, sa does not know whether infor- mation is stored in the incremental /var/adm/pacctn file or in any other /var/adm/pacctn summary file by the acct/* commands (see the tur- nacct command). EXAMPLES To charge smith for 10 units of work on a financial report, enter: /usr/sbin/acct/chargefee smith 10 A record is created in the /var/adm/fee file, which the acctmerg command is subsequently instructed to merge with records in other accounting files to produce the daily report. To check the size of a /var/adm/pacctn summary accounting file, add the following instruction to the /usr/spool/cron/crontabs/adm file: 5 * * * * /usr/sbin/acct/ckpacct This example shows another instruction that the cron daemon reads and acts upon when it is included in the /usr/spool/cron/crontabs/adm shell script file. The ckpacct com- mand is set to run at 5 minutes past every hour (5 *) every day. This command is only one of many accounting instructions nor- mally passed to the cron daemon from the /usr/spool/cron/crontabs/adm shell script file. See the System Administration manual for details. To initiate disk-usage ac- counting, add the following to the /usr/spool/cron/crontabs/root file: 0 2 * * 4 /usr/sbin/acct/dodisk This example illustrates a shell script instruction that the cron daemon reads and then processes. The dodisk command runs at 2 a.m. (0 2) each Thursday (4). This command is one of many ac- counting instructions normally passed to the cron daemon from a /usr/spool/cron/crontabs/adm shell script file. See the System Administration manual for details. To produce a monthly ac- counting report, at the beginning of each month, add the follow- ing instruction to the /usr/spool/cron/crontabs/adm file: 15 5 1 * * /usr/sbin/acct/monacct This example is an instruction that the cron daemon reads and then processes. The monacct command runs at 5:15 (15 5) the first day of each month (1). This command is only one of many accounting instructions normally passed to the cron daemon from the /usr/spool/cron/crontabs/adm shell script file. See the System Administration manual for details. To turn on the ac- counting functions when the system is started up, add the fol- lowing to the /etc/rc.config file: ACCOUNTING="YES" To set the variable, use the following rcmgr command: rcmgr set ACCOUNTING YES The startup shell procedure records the time and cleans up the records produced the previous day. FILES Specifies the command path. Header files defining structures used to organize accounting information. Accumulates the fees charged to each login name. Current database file for process accounting information. Another process accounting database file, which is produced when the /var/adm/pacct file gets too large. Login/logout database file. Shell procedure that calculates limits for exceptional usage by the login ID. Shell procedure that calculates limits of exceptional usage by command name. Working directory that contains daily accounting database files. Contains information about file systems. Working subdirectory that contains accounting summary database files. RELATED INFORMATION Commands: acctcms(8), acctcom(8), acctcon(8), acctmerg(8), acctprc(8), cron(8), fwtmp(8), printpw(8), runacct(8), rcmgr(8) Functions: acct(2) System Administration delim off acct(8)