exacct Records and Format

Routines that allow exacct records to be created serve two purposes.

• To enable third-party exacct files to be created.

• To enable the creation of tagging records to be embedded in the kernel accounting file by using the putacct system call (see getacct(2)).

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  Note –

  The putacct system call is also available from the Perl interface.

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The format permits different forms of accounting records to be captured without requiring that every change be an explicit version change. Well-written applications that consume accounting data must ignore records they do not understand.

The libexacct library converts and produces files in the exacct format. This library is the only supported interface to exacct format files.

The getacct, putacct, and wracct system calls do not apply to flows. The kernel creates flow records and writes them to the file when IPQoS flow accounting is configured.