README

Welcome to the GNU Accounting Utilities package!

This is a set of utilities which reports and summarizes data about
user connect times and process execution statistics under u*x.  This
package contains:

	ac:           summarize login accounting
	accton:       turn process accounting on or off
	last:         show the people who have logged in
	lastcomm:     show which commands have been used
	sa:           summarizes process accounting

	dump-utmp:    print a utmp file in a human-readble format
	dump-acct:    same as above for acct/pacct files

See the file `INSTALL' for generic instructions on how to compile and
install this software.

See the file `NEWS' for late-breaking news about this version.

See the file `ChangeLog' for an up-to-date list of source-level
modifications.

A big thanks to Dirk Eddelbuettel <edd@econ.queensu.ca> for
motivation!

NOTE: if you're installing this package to replace your system's
accounting utilities, you will need to delete the "usracct" and
"savacct" files written by your system's sa, as GNU sa is not able to
read them (formats vary too widely between systems).

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The usual:

  * If you run into a bug, please send a "good" bug report -- a
  message that contains detailed instructions that allow me to
  reproduce the bug.

  * If you can make a patch for a particular problem, great!  But if
  you modify more than 10 lines, I need to worry about disclaimers and
  copyright stuff.  Let's try this: if you find a bug, report it and
  I'll let you know whether or not I've been working on the problem
  (or want to do so).  We can proceed from there.  As a maintainer, I
  want to make sure that folks are not duplicating work.

  * Straightforward testing: "./configure; make compare" and check the
  output files (compare-*) in the source directory (should show times
  and etc.).

  * If this package isn't finding your utmp/pacct files correctly,
  check the file configure.in script (files.h is now automatically
  generated from the results of that script).

  * Any suggestions for better output from the dump-acct and dump-utmp
  programs?  I'm not sure what format will be easiest to parse.

  * If you see slightly different numbers for output with GNU sa
  compared with your system's sa, it's probably due to round-off error
  (vendor utils use floats, we use doubles).  Check it, however, and
  send me a report.

  * PLEASE SUGGEST FEATURES THAT YOU WOULD LIKE!  I realize that the
  standard options aren't great, so I'm looking for suggestions to
  make the output more digestible.  Would anyone be interested in
  scripts/options to produce graphic output (postscript, xplot,
  gnuplot, etc.)?

Coming up:

  * The next major release will introduce utmpx support for those of
  you lucky enough to have it.

It's good to know that people are willing to donate their time and
effort to getting the GNU Accounting Utilities up and working on many
machines.  Thanks a lot for the help!

-Noel

Noel Cragg \\ 6244 Aberdeen Avenue \\ Goleta CA 93117-2002 \\ 805 964 1892
     noel@cs.oberlin.edu \\ noel@red-bean.com \\ noel@gnu.ai.mit.edu

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The GNU Accounting Utilities are Copyright (C) 1993, 1996, 1997, 2008,
2009, 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

    This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
    the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
    (at your option) any later version.

    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
    GNU General Public License for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
    along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.