How to Create a File for Flow-Accounting Data

Language:

Before you add a flowacct action to the IPQoS configuration file, you must create a file for flow records from the flowacct module. acctadm can record either basic attributes or extended attributes in the file. All flowacct attributes are listed in Figure 5, Table 5, Attributes of a flowacct Record. For detailed information, refer to the acctadm(8) man page.

Become an administrator.
For more information, see Using Your Assigned Administrative Rights in Securing Users and Processes in Oracle Solaris 11.4.
Create a basic flow-accounting file.
The following example shows how to create a basic flow-accounting file for the premium web server that is configured in Example 4, Sample IPQoS Configuration File for a Premium Web Server.
```
# /usr/sbin/acctadm -e basic -f /var/ipqos/goldweb/account.info flow
```
acctadm -e
Invokes acctadm with the -e option. The -e option enables the arguments that follow.

basic
States that only data for the eight basic flowacct attributes is to be recorded in the file.

/var/ipqos/goldweb/account.info
Specifies the fully qualified path name of the file to hold the flow records from flowacct.

flow
Instructs acctadm to enable flow accounting.
View information about flow accounting on the IPQoS system by typing acctadm without arguments.
The acctadm output is similar to the following example:
```
Task accounting: inactive
       Task accounting file: none
     Tracked task resources: none
   Untracked task resources: extended
         Process accounting: inactive
    Process accounting file: none
  Tracked process resources: none
Untracked process resources: extended,host,mstate
            Flow accounting: active
       Flow accounting file: /var/ipqos/goldweb/account.info
     Tracked flow resources: basic
   Untracked flow resources: dsfield,ctime,lseen,projid,uid
```
All entries except the last four are for use with the Oracle Solaris Resource Manager feature. The entries that are specific to IPQoS are as follows:

Flow accounting: active

Indicates that flow accounting is turned on.

Flow accounting file: /var/ipqos/goldweb/account.info

Indicates the name of the current flow-accounting file.

Tracked flow resources: basic

Indicates that only the basic flow attributes are tracked.

Untracked flow resources: dsfield,ctime,lseen,projid,uid

Indicates that only the basic flow attributes are tracked.
(Optional) Add the extended attributes to the accounting file.
```
# acctadm -e extended -f /var/ipqos/goldweb/account.info flow
```
(Optional) Return to recording only the basic attributes in the accounting file.
```
# acctadm -d extended -e basic -f /var/ipqos/goldweb/account.info
```
The -d option disables extended accounting.
View the contents of a flow-accounting file.
For instructions for viewing the contents of a flow-accounting file, see Perl Interface to the libexacct Library in Administering Resource Management in Oracle Solaris 11.4.

See Also

For detailed information about the extended accounting feature, refer to Chapter 4, About Extended Accounting in Administering Resource Management in Oracle Solaris 11.4.

Next Steps

To define flowacct parameters in the IPQoS configuration file, refer to How to Enable Accounting for a Class in the IPQoS Configuration File.
To print the data in the file that was created with acctadm, refer to Perl Interface to the libexacct Library in Administering Resource Management in Oracle Solaris 11.4.