ac(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | FILES | AUTHOR | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON

AC(1)                    General Commands Manual                   AC(1)

NAME         top

       ac -  print statistics about users' connect time

SYNOPSIS         top

       ac     [ -d | --daily-totals ] [ -y | --print-year ]
              [ -p | --individual-totals ] [ people ]
              [ -f | --file filename ] [ -a | --all-days ]
              [ --complain ] [ --reboots ] [ --supplants ]
              [ --timewarps ] [ --compatibility ]
              [ --tw-leniency num ] [ --tw-suspicious num ]
              [ -z | --print-zeros ] [ --debug ]
              [ -V | --version ] [ -h | --help ]

DESCRIPTION         top

       ac  prints  out  a report of connect time (in hours) based on the
       logins/logouts in the current wtmp file.  A total is also printed
       out.

       The accounting file wtmp is maintained by init(8)  and  login(1).
       Neither ac nor login creates the wtmp if it doesn't exist, no ac‐
       counting  is  done.   To begin accounting, create the file with a
       length of zero.

       NOTE:  The wtmp file can get really big, really fast.  You  might
       want to trim it every once and a while.

       GNU  ac  works  nearly  the  same  UNIX  ac, though it's a little
       smarter in several ways.  You should therefore expect differences
       in the output of GNU ac and the output of ac's on other  systems.
       Use the command info accounting to get additional information.

OPTIONS         top

       -d, --daily-totals
              Print totals for each day rather than just one big total
              at the end.  The output looks like this:
                      Jul  3  total     1.17
                      Jul  4  total     2.10
                      Jul  5  total     8.23
                      Jul  6  total     2.10
                      Jul  7  total     0.30
       -p, --individual-totals
              Print time totals for each user in addition to the usual
              everything-lumped-into-one value.  It looks like:
                      bob       8.06
                      goff      0.60
                      maley     7.37
                      root      0.12
                      total    16.15
       people Print out the sum total of the connect time used by all of
              the users included in people.  Note that people is a space
              separated list of valid user names; wildcards are not al‐
              lowed.
       -f, --file filename
              Read from the file filename instead of the system's wtmp
              file.
       --complain
              When the wtmp file has a problem (a time-warp, missing
              record, or whatever), print out an appropriate error.
       --reboots
              Reboot records are NOT written at the time of a reboot,
              but when the system restarts; therefore, it is impossible
              to know exactly when the reboot occurred.  Users may have
              been logged into the system at the time of the reboot, and
              many ac's automatically count the time between the login
              and the reboot record against the user (even though all of
              that time shouldn't be, perhaps, if the system is down for
              a long time, for instance).  If you want to count this
              time, include the flag.  *For vanilla ac compatibility,
              include this flag.*
       --supplants
              Sometimes, a logout record is not written for a specific
              terminal, so the time that the last user accrued cannot be
              calculated.  If you want to include the time from the
              user's login to the next login on the terminal (though
              probably incorrect), include this you want to include the
              time from the user's login to the next login on the termi‐
              nal (though probably incorrect), include this flag.  *For
              vanilla ac compatibility, include this flag.*
       --timewarps
              Sometimes, entries in a wtmp file will suddenly jump back
              into the past without a clock change record occurring.  It
              is impossible to know how long a user was logged in when
              this occurs.  If you want to count the time between the
              login and the time warp against the user, include this
              flag.  *For vanilla ac compatibility, include this flag.*
       --compatibility
              This is shorthand for typing out the three above options.
       -a, --all-days
              If we're printing daily totals, print a record for every
              day instead of skipping intervening days where there is no
              login activity.  Without this flag, time accrued during
              those intervening days gets listed under the next day
              where there is login activity.
       --tw-leniency num
              Set the time warp leniency to num seconds.  Records in
              wtmp files might be slightly out of order (most notably
              when two logins occur within a one-second period - the
              second one gets written first).  By default, this value is
              set to 60.  If the program notices this problem, time is
              not assigned to users unless the --timewarps flag is used.
       --tw-suspicious num
              Set the time warp suspicious value to num seconds.  If two
              records in the wtmp file are farther than this number of
              seconds apart, there is a problem with the wtmp file (or
              your machine hasn't been used in a year).  If the program
              notices this problem, time is not assigned to users unless
              the --timewarps flag is used.
       -y, --print-year
              Print year when displaying dates.
       -z, --print-zeros
              If a total for any category (save the grand total) is ze‐
              ro, print it.  The default is to suppress printing.
       --debug
              Print verbose internal information.
       -V, --version
              Print the version number of ac to standard output and
              quit.
       -h, --help
              Prints the usage string and default locations of system
              files to standard output and exits.

FILES         top

       wtmp
              The system wide login record file. See wtmp(5) for further
              details.

AUTHOR         top

       The GNU accounting utilities were written by Noel Cragg
       <noel@gnu.ai.mit.edu>. The man page was adapted from the account‐
       ing texinfo page by Susan Kleinmann <sgk@sgk.tiac.net>.

SEE ALSO         top

       login(1), wtmp(5), init(8), sa(8)

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the psacct (process accounting utilities)
       project.  Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/acct/⟩.  If you have a bug report for
       this manual page, see ⟨http://www.gnu.org/software/acct/⟩.  This
       page was obtained from the tarball acct-6.6.4.tar.gz fetched from
       ⟨http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/acct/⟩ on 2024-06-14.  If you discover
       any rendering problems in this HTML version of the page, or you
       believe there is a better or more up-to-date source for the page,
       or you have corrections or improvements to the information in
       this COLOPHON (which is not part of the original manual page),
       send a mail to man-pages@man7.org

                             2010 August 16                        AC(1)

Pages that refer to this page: utmp(5)accton(8)sa(8)