csa - overview of Comprehensive System Accounting (CSA)
DESCRIPTION
Linux Comprehensive System Accounting (CSA) is a set of C
programs and shell scripts that, like the other accounting
packages, provide methods for collecting per-process
resource usage data, monitoring disk usage, and charging
fees to specific login accounts.
CSA provides the following features:
· Per-job accounting
· Daemon accounting (workload management systems and
tape (tape is deferred))
· Flexible accounting periods (daily and periodic
accounting reports can be generated as often as
desired and not restricted to once per day or once per
month)
· Flexible system billing units (SBUs)
· Offline archiving of accounting data
· User exits for site specific customization of daily
and periodic accounting
· Configurable parameters within the //eettcc//ccssaa..ccoonnff file
· User job accounting (ja(1) command)
CSA takes this per-process accounting information and com
bines it by job identifier (jjiidd) within system boot uptime
periods. CSA accounting for an interactive job consists
of all accounting data for a given job identifier during a
single system boot period. CSA accounting for a batch job
includes the accounting data associated with the batch
system identifier, which may consist of one or more job
identifiers and may span multiple reboots.
Daemon accounting records are written at the completion of
daemon specific events. These records are combined with
per-process accounting records associated with the same
interactive or batch job.
By default, CSA only reports accounting data for termi
nated jobs. Interactive jobs, ccrroonn jobs and aatt jobs ter
minate when the last process in the job exits, which is
normally the login shell. A workload management job is
recognized as terminated by CSA based upon daemon account
ing records and an end-of-job record for that job. Jobs
which are still active are recycled into the next
use of the ccssaarruunn --AA option.
A system billing unit (SBU) is a unit of measure that
reflects use of machine resources. SBUs are defined in
the CSA configuration file //eettcc//ccssaa..ccoonnff and are set to
00..00 by default. The weighting factor associated with each
field in the CSA accounting records can be altered to
obtain an SBU value suitable for your site. See the Com
prehensive System Accounting for Linux manual for further
information.
The CSA accounting records are not written into the System
V pacct file but are written into a separate CSA
//vvaarr//ccssaa//ddaayy//ppaacccctt file. The CSA commands can only be
used with CSA generated accounting records. Similarly,
the System V accounting commands can only be used with
System V generated accounting records.
There are four user exits available with the csarun(8)
daily accounting script. There is one user exit available
with the csaperiod(8) periodic accounting script. These
user exits allow sites to tailor the daily and periodic
run of accounting to their specific needs by creating user
exit scripts to perform any additional processing and to
allow for archiving of accounting data. See the csarun(8)
and csaperiod(8) man pages for further information.
CSA provides two user accounting commands, csacom(1) and
ja(1). The ccssaaccoomm command reads the CSA pacct file and
writes selected accounting records to standard output.
The jjaa command provides job accounting information for the
current job of the caller. This information is obtained
from a separate user job accounting file to which the ker
nel writes. See the csacom(1) and ja(1) man pages for
further information.
The //eettcc//ccssaa..ccoonnff file contains CSA configuration vari
ables. These variables are used by the CSA commands.
The ccssaasswwiittcchh command is used to dynamically configure on
or off CSA record types, set memory and I/O threshold val
ues, switch the CSA pacct file, and provide status infor
mation. See the csaswitch(8) man page for further infor
mation.
CSA can be automatically configured on across system
reboots using the cchhkkccoonnffiigg ----aadddd ccssaaaacccctt command.
INSTALLATION/STARTUP SUMMARY
The following steps are required to set up CSA job
accounting:
· Install a distribution of CSA commands.
kernel module.
· Configure CSA on across system reboots by using the
cchhkkccoonnffiigg utility as follows: cchhkkccoonnffiigg ----aadddd ccssaaaacccctt
· Modify the CSA configuration variables in
//eettcc//ccssaa..ccoonnff as desired
· Use ccssaasswwiittcchh to configure on the accounting record
types and thresholds defined in //eettcc//ccssaa..ccoonnff as fol
lows: ccssaasswwiittcchh --cc oonn
This step will be done automatically for subsequent system
reboots when CSA is configured on via the chkconfig(8)
utility.
FILES
//uussrr//ssbbiinn// Contains the CSA adminis
trator commands
//uussrr//bbiinn// Contains the CSA user com
mands, ccssaaccoomm and jjaa
//eettcc//ccssaa..ccoonnff CSA configuration file
//vvaarr//ccssaa//ddaayy//ppaacccctt Current process accounting
file
//vvaarr//ccssaa//ssuumm CSA daily reports and data
files
//vvaarr//ccssaa//ffiissccaall CSA periodic reports and
data files
SEE ALSO
acctdisk(8), csaaddc(8), csabuild(8), csachargefee(8),
csackpacct(8), csacms(8), csacom(1), csacon(8),
csacrep(8), csadrep(8), csaedit(8), csagetconfig(8),
csajrep(8), csaperiod(8), csarecy(8), csarun(8),
csaswitch(8), csaverify(8), dodisk(8), ja(1), lastlo
gin(8).
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