Using Extended Accounting Functionality

How to Activate Extended Accounting for Processes, Tasks, and Flows

To activate the extended accounting facility for tasks, processes, and flows, use the acctadm command. The optional final parameter to acctadm indicates whether the command should act on the process, system task, or flow accounting components of the extended accounting facility.

1. Become superuser or assume an equivalent role.

   Roles contain authorizations and privileged commands. For more information about roles, see Using the Solaris Management Tools With RBAC (Task Map) in System Administration Guide: Basic Administration.

2. Activate extended accounting for processes.

   # acctadm -e extended -f /var/adm/exacct/proc process

3. Activate extended accounting for tasks.

   # acctadm -e extended,mstate -f /var/adm/exacct/task task

4. Activate extended accounting for flows.

   # acctadm -e extended -f /var/adm/exacct/flow flow

See Also

See acctadm(1M) for more information.

How to Activate Extended Accounting With a Startup Script

1. Become superuser, or assume the Primary Administrator role.

   To create the role and assign the role to a user, see Using the Solaris Management Tools With RBAC (Task Map) in System Administration Guide: Basic Administration.

2. Activate extended accounting on an ongoing basis by linking the /etc/init.d/acctadm script into /etc/rc2.d.

   # ln -s /etc/init.d/acctadm /etc/rc2.d/Snacctadm
   # ln -s /etc/init.d/acctadm /etc/rc2.d/Knacctadm

   The n variable is replaced by a number.

   ---

   Tip - You must manually activate extended accounting at least once to set up the configuration.

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See Also

See Extended Accounting Configuration for information on accounting configuration.

How to Display Extended Accounting Status

Type acctadm without arguments to display the current status of the extended accounting facility.

machine% acctadm
                 Task accounting: active
            Task accounting file: /var/adm/exacct/task
          Tracked task resources: extended
        Untracked task resources: none
              Process accounting: active
         Process accounting file: /var/adm/exacct/proc
       Tracked process resources: extended
     Untracked process resources: host
                 Flow accounting: active
            Flow accounting file: /var/adm/exacct/flow
          Tracked flow resources: extended
        Untracked flow resources: none

In the previous example, system task accounting is active in extended mode and mstate mode. Process and flow accounting are active in extended mode.

Note - In the context of extended accounting, microstate (mstate) refers to the extended data, associated with microstate process transitions, that is available in the process usage file (see proc(4)). This data provides substantially more detail about the activities of the process than basic or extended records.

How to View Available Accounting Resources

Available resources can vary from system to system, and from platform to platform. Use the acctadm command with the -r option to view the accounting resources available on your system.

machine% acctadm -r
process:
extended pid,uid,gid,cpu,time,command,tty,projid,taskid,ancpid,wait-status,zone,flag,
memory,mstatedisplays as one line
basic    pid,uid,gid,cpu,time,command,tty,flag
task:
extended taskid,projid,cpu,time,host,mstate,anctaskid,zone
basic    taskid,projid,cpu,time
flow:
extended 
saddr,daddr,sport,dport,proto,dsfield,nbytes,npkts,action,ctime,lseen,projid,uid
basic    saddr,daddr,sport,dport,proto,nbytes,npkts,action

How to Deactivate Process, Task, and Flow Accounting

To deactivate process, task, and flow accounting, turn off each of them individually by using the acctadm command with the -x option.

1. Become superuser or assume an equivalent role.

   Roles contain authorizations and privileged commands. For more information about roles, see Using the Solaris Management Tools With RBAC (Task Map) in System Administration Guide: Basic Administration.

2. Turn off process accounting.

   # acctadm -x process 

3. Turn off task accounting.

   # acctadm -x task

4. Turn off flow accounting.

   # acctadm -x flow

5. Verify that task accounting, process accounting, and flow accounting have been turned off.

       # acctadm
               Task accounting: inactive
          Task accounting file: none
        Tracked task resources: extended
      Untracked task resources: none
            Process accounting: inactive
       Process accounting file: none
     Tracked process resources: extended
   Untracked process resources: host
               Flow accounting: inactive
          Flow accounting file: none
        Tracked flow resources: extended
      Untracked flow resources: none