.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1991 Regents of the University of California.
.\" %sccs.include.redist.man%
.\" @(#)acct.2 6.5 (Berkeley) %G%
.Nd enable or disable process accounting
.Fn acct "const char *file"
call enables or disables the collection of system accounting
is a nil pointer, accounting is disabled.
pathname (null-terminated), record collection is enabled and for
every process initiated which terminates under normal
conditions an accounting record is appended to
Abnormal conditions of termination are reboots
or other fatal system problems.
Records for processes which never terminate can not be
For more information on the record structure used by
.Pa /usr/include/sys/acct.h
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.
The file must exist and the call may be exercised only by the super-user.
will fail if one of the following is true:
The caller is not the super-user.
A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
The pathname contains a character with the high-order bit set.
A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters,
or an entire path name exceeded 1023 characters.
The named file does not exist.
Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix,
or the path name is not a regular file.
Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
The named file resides on a read-only file system.
points outside the process's allocated address space.
An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
function call appeared in Version 7 AT&T UNIX.
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