.\"	$OpenBSD: acct.2,v 1.20 2021/01/03 18:10:27 rob Exp $
.\"	$NetBSD: acct.2,v 1.6 1995/02/27 12:31:47 cgd Exp $
.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1991, 1993
.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
.\" are met:
.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
.\"    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
.\"    without specific prior written permission.
.\"
.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
.\" ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
.\"
.\"     @(#)acct.2	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93
.\"
.Dd $Mdocdate: January 3 2021 $
.Dt ACCT 2
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm acct
.Nd enable or disable process accounting
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.In unistd.h
.Ft int
.Fn acct "const char *file"
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Fn acct
call enables or disables the collection of system accounting records.
If
.Fa file
is
.Dv NULL ,
accounting is disabled.
If
.Fa file
is an existing, NUL-terminated pathname, record collection is enabled.
For every process initiated which terminates under normal conditions or
misbehaves in very specific ways (e.g. file access prevented by unveil),
an accounting record is appended to
.Fa file .
Abnormal conditions of termination are reboots or other
fatal system problems.
.Fn acct
is only available on kernels compiled with the
.Cm ACCOUNTING
option.
.Pp
For more information on the record structure used by
.Fn acct ,
see
.Pa /usr/include/sys/acct.h
and
.Xr acct 5 .
.Pp
This call is permitted only to the superuser.
.Sh NOTES
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.
.Sh RETURN VALUES
.Rv -std
.Sh ERRORS
.Fn acct
will fail if one of the following is true:
.Bl -tag -width Er
.It Bq Er EPERM
The caller is not the superuser.
.It Bq Er ENOTDIR
A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
.It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG
A component of a pathname exceeded
.Dv NAME_MAX
characters, or an entire pathname (including the terminating NUL)
exceeded
.Dv PATH_MAX
bytes.
.It Bq Er ENOENT
The named file does not exist.
.It Bq Er EACCES
Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix,
or the pathname is not a regular file.
.It Bq Er ELOOP
Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
.It Bq Er EROFS
The named file resides on a read-only file system.
.It Bq Er EFAULT
.Fa file
points outside the process's allocated address space.
.It Bq Er EIO
An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr acct 5 ,
.Xr accton 8 ,
.Xr sa 8
.Sh HISTORY
An
.Fn acct
function call appeared in
.At v7 .