System data collection and reporting

You can set up the system to automatically collect data and generate reports.

For data to be collected automatically, a member of the adm group must have been setup as an accounting system. The accounting system setup enables the cron daemon to run the commands that generate data on:

• The amount of time each user spends logged in to the system
• Usage of the processing unit, memory, and I/O resources
• The amount of disk space occupied by each user's files
• Usage of printers and plotters
• The number of times a specific command is given.

The system writes a record of each session and process after they are completed. These records are converted into total accounting (tacct) records arranged by user and merged into a daily report. Periodically, the daily reports are combined to produce totals for the defined fiscal period. Methods for collecting and reporting the data and the various accounting commands and files are discussed in the following sections.

Although most of the accounting data is collected and processed automatically, a member of the adm group can enter certain commands from the keyboard to obtain specific information.