From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Apr 18 17:49:34 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Delivered-To: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 495F516A402 for ; Wed, 18 Apr 2007 17:49:34 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dds@aueb.gr) Received: from mx-out-05.forthnet.gr (mx-out.forthnet.gr [193.92.150.103]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BF2F013C48A for ; Wed, 18 Apr 2007 17:49:33 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dds@aueb.gr) Received: from mx-av-01.forthnet.gr (mx-av.forthnet.gr [193.92.150.27]) by mx-out-05.forthnet.gr (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id l3IHY6ut000623 for ; Wed, 18 Apr 2007 20:34:06 +0300 Received: from MX-IN-02.forthnet.gr (mx-in-02.forthnet.gr [193.92.150.185]) by mx-av-01.forthnet.gr (8.14.1/8.14.1) with ESMTP id l3IHY6i1016965 for ; Wed, 18 Apr 2007 20:34:06 +0300 Received: from [192.168.136.22] (ppp121-97.adsl.forthnet.gr [193.92.228.97]) by MX-IN-02.forthnet.gr (8.14.1/8.14.1) with ESMTP id l3IHY5i6018854 for ; Wed, 18 Apr 2007 20:34:05 +0300 Authentication-Results: MX-IN-02.forthnet.gr from=dds@aueb.gr; sender-id=neutral; spf=neutral Message-ID: <46265668.5010700@aueb.gr> Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2007 20:33:28 +0300 From: Diomidis Spinellis User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.9) Gecko/20061211 SeaMonkey/1.0.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-7; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Subject: HEADS UP: new accounting file format X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 18 Apr 2007 17:49:34 -0000 You can skip the rest of this email if you are NOT running process accounting or if you don't care about your old accounting files. On April 21st I will commit to the FreeBSD kernel and user programs a new format of accounting files - acct(5). This change (discussed in -arch) will provide microsecond precision to time values, simplify the storage of time values, and provide extra range for overflowing fields. This change will render incompatible the existing acct(5) files and the condensed summary files /var/account/savacct and /var/account/usracct. Although from the state of the process accounting system I guess that it has become mostly useless for its purpose over the years, it was pointed to me that some installations run accounting as a way of auditing command and resource usage. Such installations would presumably want to keep access to existing accounting files. For this reason I have committed a new version of lastcomm(1) that can export the contents of an accounting file in text format. If your installation requires access to old accounting files, I recommend: 1) to compile this file and keep a binary in a safe place 2) to export your accounting files into text format. You can do this with a command like lastcomm -X -f acctfile >acctfile.txt After the April 21st change you will be able to import the text accounting files into the new file format (I have already tested this functionality), and also use the old binary to inspect and export those old files. I have made no provision for updating the condensed summary files /var/account/savacct and /var/account/usracct. If your process accounting system relies on them, you will need to save their contents in a readable format before the switch. Diomidis Spinellis - http://www.spinellis.gr