Hi all,

This is a process-accounting question. I need to be able to track the total hours of user logged in time for each day on a workstation.

I have tried psacct (ac -d --file /var/log/wtmp). It should give me login time in hours, but strangely, it gives me numbers greater than 24 hours. Any idea why this is?

I'm open to recommendation of other programs/tools that can achieve my goal.

Thanks,
Carmen

Seems you need

Hi Teufel,

I've tried the last command, but it gives me results that is very difficult to parse.
It gives me results in intervals of a few minutes. Here is a snapshot of what I get when I use last:

mht pts/6 :0 Wed Jun 1 14:39 - 14:50 (00:10)
mht pts/10 :0 Wed Jun 1 13:10 - 13:13 (00:02)
mht pts/4 :0 Wed Jun 1 13:09 - 09:40 (20:30)
mht pts/4 :0 Wed Jun 1 12:59 - 13:09 (00:10)
mht pts/9 :0 Wed Jun 1 12:55 - 14:30 (01:34)
mht pts/7 :0 Wed Jun 1 12:47 - 09:40 (20:52)
mht pts/7 :0 Wed Jun 1 12:30 - 12:47 (00:16)
mht pts/4 :0 Wed Jun 1 12:27 - 12:56 (00:29)
mht pts/4 :0 Wed Jun 1 12:08 - 12:27 (00:19)
mht pts/7 :0 Wed Jun 1 10:26 - 12:04 (01:37)

Is there something wrong with how my system is configured, seeing that psacct and last results are not what I expect them to be?

pts = pseudo-terminal ie xterm session (or equiv); that's why you have so many.

last <username> /var/log/wtmp

last <username> /var/run/utmp

users <username> /var/log/wtmp

Seems there is no command that gives ready to use output and you have to parse the output of last command. I'd use "last reboot" and "last shutdown" commands as helpers.