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acct(2)

acct(1M)

acctcom(1M)

exec(2)

fork(2)

ACCT(4)  —  HP-UX

NAME

acct − per-process accounting file format

SYNOPSIS

#include <sys/acct.h>

DESCRIPTION

Files produced as a result of calling acct(2) have records in the form defined by <sys/acct.h>, whose contents are:

typedefushort comp_t;/∗ "floating point": 13-bit fraction, 3-bit exponent  ∗/
structacct {

char ac_flag; /∗ Accounting flag ∗/
char ac_stat; /∗ Exit status ∗/
ushort ac_uid; /∗ Accounting user ID ∗/
ushort ac_gid; /∗ Accounting group ID ∗/
dev_t ac_tty; /∗ control typewriter ∗/
time_t ac_btime; /∗ Beginning time ∗/
comp_t ac_utime; /∗ acctng user time in clock ticks ∗/
comp_t ac_stime; /∗ acctng system time in clock ticks ∗/
comp_t ac_etime; /∗ acctng elapsed time in clock ticks ∗/
comp_t ac_mem; /∗ memory usage in clicks ∗/
comp_t ac_io; /∗ chars trnsfrd by read/write ∗/
comp_t ac_rw; /∗ number of block reads/writes ∗/
char ac_comm[8]; /∗ command name ∗/
};


#define AFORK 01 /∗ has executed fork, but no exec ∗/
#define ASU 02 /∗ used super-user privileges ∗/
#define ACCTF 0300 /∗ record type: 00 = acct ∗/

In ac_flag, the AFORK flag is turned on by each fork(2) and turned off by an exec(2). The ac_comm field is inherited from the parent process and is reset by any exec. Each time the system charges the process with a clock tick, it also adds to ac_mem the current process size, computed as follows:

(data size) + (text size) + (number of in-core processes sharing text) +

sum of ((shared memory segment size) / (number of in-core processes attached to segment))

For systems with virtual memory, the text, data, and shared memory sizes refer to the resident portion of the memory segments.  The value of ac_mem/(ac_stime+ac_utime) can be viewed as an approximation to the mean process size, as modified by text-sharing. 

The structure tacct.h, which resides with the source files of the accounting commands, represents the total accounting format used by the various accounting commands:

/∗
 ∗  total accounting (for acct period), also for day
 ∗/
structtacct {

uid_t ta_uid; /∗ userid ∗/
char ta_name[8]; /∗ login name ∗/
float ta_cpu[2]; /∗ cum. cpu time, p/np (mins) ∗/
float ta_kcore[2]; /∗ cum kcore-minutes, p/np ∗/
float ta_con[2]; /∗ cum. connect time, p/np, mins ∗/
float ta_du; /∗ cum. disk usage ∗/
long ta_pc; /∗ count of processes ∗/
unsigned short ta_sc; /∗ count of login sessions ∗/
unsigned short ta_dc; /∗ count of disk samples ∗/
short ta_fee; /∗ fee for special services ∗/

};

SEE ALSO

acct(2), acct(1M), acctcom(1M), exec(2), fork(2). 

BUGS

The ac_mem value for a short-lived command gives little information about the actual size of the command, because ac_mem may be incremented while a different command (e.g., the shell) is being executed by the process. 

Hewlett-Packard Company  —  May 11, 2021

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