1AC(1) General Commands Manual AC(1)
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6 ac - print statistics about users' connect time
7
9 ac [ -d | --daily-totals ] [ -y | --print-year ]
10 [ -p | --individual-totals ] [ people ]
11 [ -f | --file filename ] [ -a | --all-days ]
12 [ --complain ] [ --reboots ] [ --supplants ]
13 [ --timewarps ] [ --compatibility ]
14 [ --tw-leniency num ] [ --tw-suspicious num ]
15 [ -z | --print-zeros ] [ --debug ]
16 [ -V | --version ] [ -h | --help ]
17
19 ac prints out a report of connect time (in hours) based on the lo‐
20 gins/logouts in the current wtmp file. A total is also printed out.
21 The accounting file wtmp is maintained by init(8) and login(1). Nei‐
23 ther ac nor login creates the wtmp if it doesn't exist, no accounting
24 is done. To begin accounting, create the file with a length of zero.
25 NOTE: The wtmp file can get really big, really fast. You might want
27 to trim it every once and a while.
28 GNU ac works nearly the same UNIX ac, though it's a little smarter in
30 several ways. You should therefore expect differences in the output of
31 GNU ac and the output of ac's on other systems. Use the command info
32 accounting to get additional information.
33
35 -d, --daily-totals
36 Print totals for each day rather than just one big total at the
37 end. The output looks like this:
38 Jul 3 total 1.17
39 Jul 4 total 2.10
40 Jul 5 total 8.23
41 Jul 6 total 2.10
42 Jul 7 total 0.30
43 -p, --individual-totals
44 Print time totals for each user in addition to the usual every‐
45 thing-lumped-into-one value. It looks like:
46 bob 8.06
47 goff 0.60
48 maley 7.37
49 root 0.12
50 total 16.15
51 people Print out the sum total of the connect time used by all of the
52 users included in people. Note that people is a space separated
53 list of valid user names; wildcards are not allowed.
54 -f, --file filename
55 Read from the file filename instead of the system's wtmp file.
56 --complain
57 When the wtmp file has a problem (a time-warp, missing record,
58 or whatever), print out an appropriate error.
59 --reboots
60 Reboot records are NOT written at the time of a reboot, but when
61 the system restarts; therefore, it is impossible to know exactly
62 when the reboot occurred. Users may have been logged into the
63 system at the time of the reboot, and many ac's automatically
64 count the time between the login and the reboot record against
65 the user (even though all of that time shouldn't be, perhaps, if
66 the system is down for a long time, for instance). If you want
67 to count this time, include the flag. *For vanilla ac compati‐
68 bility, include this flag.*
69 --supplants
70 Sometimes, a logout record is not written for a specific termi‐
71 nal, so the time that the last user accrued cannot be calculat‐
72 ed. If you want to include the time from the user's login to
73 the next login on the terminal (though probably incorrect), in‐
74 clude this you want to include the time from the user's login to
75 the next login on the terminal (though probably incorrect), in‐
76 clude this flag. *For vanilla ac compatibility, include this
77 flag.*
78 --timewarps
79 Sometimes, entries in a wtmp file will suddenly jump back into
80 the past without a clock change record occurring. It is impos‐
81 sible to know how long a user was logged in when this occurs.
82 If you want to count the time between the login and the time
83 warp against the user, include this flag. *For vanilla ac com‐
84 patibility, include this flag.*
85 --compatibility
86 This is shorthand for typing out the three above options.
87 -a, --all-days
88 If we're printing daily totals, print a record for every day in‐
89 stead of skipping intervening days where there is no login ac‐
90 tivity. Without this flag, time accrued during those interven‐
91 ing days gets listed under the next day where there is login ac‐
92 tivity.
93 --tw-leniency num
94 Set the time warp leniency to num seconds. Records in wtmp
95 files might be slightly out of order (most notably when two lo‐
96 gins occur within a one-second period - the second one gets
97 written first). By default, this value is set to 60. If the
98 program notices this problem, time is not assigned to users un‐
99 less the --timewarps flag is used.
100 --tw-suspicious num
101 Set the time warp suspicious value to num seconds. If two
102 records in the wtmp file are farther than this number of seconds
103 apart, there is a problem with the wtmp file (or your machine
104 hasn't been used in a year). If the program notices this prob‐
105 lem, time is not assigned to users unless the --timewarps flag
106 is used.
107 -y, --print-year
108 Print year when displaying dates.
109 -z, --print-zeros
110 If a total for any category (save the grand total) is zero,
111 print it. The default is to suppress printing.
112 --debug
113 Print verbose internal information.
114 -V, --version
115 Print the version number of ac to standard output and quit.
116 -h, --help
117 Prints the usage string and default locations of system files to
118 standard output and exits.
120 wtmp
121 The system wide login record file. See wtmp(5) for further de‐
122 tails.
124 The GNU accounting utilities were written by Noel Cragg
125 <noel@gnu.ai.mit.edu>. The man page was adapted from the accounting
126 texinfo page by Susan Kleinmann <sgk@sgk.tiac.net>.
128 login(1), wtmp(5), init(8), sa(8)
129 2010 August 16 AC(1)