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How to Enable Process Accounting in Ubuntu

Acct will log user process

If you Enable process accounting in your system, it will help you to keep track of your user processes. It is very useful for System administrators for keeping log of your users. In Ubuntu Process accounting can be done by installing utility called Acct

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sudo apt-get install acct 

Make a log file for process accounting

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sudo touch /var/log/pacct

Enable process accounting on

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sudo accton /var/log/pacct

or

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/etc/init.d/acct start
For viewing the Process Information Use the following command:

Display details about users’ connect time

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ac
  • ac command displays a report of connect time in hours based on the logins/logouts.
  • ac - Print total connection time.
  • ac -dp - display daily (-d) connection totals by person (-p)
Display information about previously executed user commands

The below command will display the commands executed by user john

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sudo lastcomm john

Search and display log by command rm

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sudo lastcomm rm

Search and display log by terminal name

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sudo lastcomm pts/1 
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 sudo sa

sa command will display information about previously executed commands, The information can also be summarized on a per-user basis The output fields are labelled as follows:

  • cpu sum of system and user time in cpu seconds
  • re “real time” in cpu seconds
  • k cpu-time averaged core usage, in 1k units
  • avio average number of I/O operations per execution t- io total number of I/O operations
  • k*sec cpu storage integral (kilo-core seconds) u user cpu time in cpu seconds s system time in cpu seconds

Display ouput per user

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sudo sa -u 

Display the number of processes and number of CPU minutes on a per-user basis

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sudo sa -m

By using sa command and looking at re, k, cp/cpu time you can find out suspicious activity or user and command who is eating your CPU and Memory . An increase in CPU/memory usage is indication of problem.

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