3 Using Process Accounting

The tools contained within the psacct package implements the process accounting service.

The psacct package also includes the following utilities to monitor process activities:

ac

Displays connection times in hours for a user as recorded in the wtmp file (by default, /var/log/wtmp).

accton

Turns on process accounting to the specified file. If you don't specify a file name argument, process accounting is stopped. The default system accounting file is /var/account/pacct.

lastcomm

Displays information about command history as recorded in the system accounting file.

sa

Summarizes information about command history as recorded in the system accounting file.

Note:

As for any logging activity, ensure that the file system has enough space to store the system accounting and wtmp files. Monitor the size of the files and truncate them as needed.

For more information, see the ac(1), accton(8), lastcomm(1), and sa(8) manual pages.