Updated: 2022/Sep/29

Please read Privacy Policy. It's for your privacy.

AC(8)                       System Manager's Manual                      AC(8)

NAME
     ac - display connect time accounting

SYNOPSIS
     ac [-d | -p] [-t tty] [-w file] [users ...]

DESCRIPTION
     If the file /var/log/wtmp exists, a record of individual login and logout
     times are written to it by login(1) and init(8), respectively.  The
     program ac examines these records and writes the accumulated connect time
     for all logins to the standard output.

     Options available:

     -d         Display the connect times in 24 hour chunks.

     -p         Display individual user totals.

     -t tty     Only do accounting logins on certain ttys.  The tty
                specification can start with `!' to indicate not this tty and
                end with `*' to indicate all similarly named ttys.  Multiple
                -t flags may be specified.

     -w file    Read raw connect time data from file instead of the default
                file /var/log/wtmp.

     users ...  Display totals for the given individuals only.

     If no arguments are given, ac displays the total amount of login time for
     all active accounts on the system.

     The default wtmp file is an infinitely increasing file unless frequently
     truncated.  This is normally done by the daily daemon scripts scheduled
     by cron(8), which rename and rotate the wtmp files before truncating them
     (and keep about a week's worth on hand).  No login times are collected,
     however, if the file does not exist.

     For example,

           ac -p -t "ttyd*" > modems
           ac -p -t "!ttyd*" > other

     allows times recorded in modems to be charged out at a different rate
     than other.

FILES
     /var/log/wtmp        connect time accounting file
     /var/log/wtmp.[0-7]  rotated files

EXIT STATUS
     The ac utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

SEE ALSO
     login(1), utmp(5), init(8), sa(8)

HISTORY
     An ac command appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX.  This version of ac was
     written for NetBSD 1.0 from the specification provided by various
     systems' manual pages.

NetBSD 10.99                    April 19, 1994                    NetBSD 10.99