NNACCT(1m)NNACCT(1m)NAMEnnacct - news accounting and access authorization (nn)
SYNOPSISnnacct-r [ -f file ] [ -a ] [ user ]...
nnacct [ -ppolicy ] [ -qquota ] user...
nnacct-ZERO
DESCRIPTION
The nnacct command provides an optional accounting and access autho‐
rization for news reading via the nn news reader.
The first form (-r) is used to print accounting reports. If a file is
specified data from a saved accounting file; otherwise the data is read
from the current accounting file.
If -a is specified, the report will contain accounting data for all
users. Otherwise, if one or more users are specified, the data for
these users will be printed. If neiter is specified, only the account‐
ing data for the current user is printed.
Only the super-user can generate reports for other users than the
caller.
The second form (-p and/or -q) assigns the specified access policy
and/or quota to the specified users. If a given user is not already
known in the accounting file, a new entry with the specified policy and
quota is created (default values are used if both are not specified).
The third form (-ZERO) will clear the usage counts for all users.
Individual usage counts cannot be cleared. The original accounting
file is saved with a .old suffix.
The following policies are currently implemented:
0 No access. The user is not allowed to read news at all.
1 Privileged user. The user can read news at all times and no
accounting information is saved. This is obviously the policy
for system administrators :-)
2 Full time access. The user can access news at all times.
3 Off-hours access. The user can only access news at off hours,
i.e. in the morning, in the evening, on week-ends, and on holi‐
days (not complete - check the source :-)
The quota specifies a number of hours which the user is allowed to read
news. When this quota is used up, access will be blocked. A quota of
zero gives unlimited access.
New users will get the default policy and quota defined in account.c.
If this allows new users to read news at only specific times, this form
can be used to permit individual users to read news at all times, or it
can be used to prevent them from reading news at all. If the default
policy does not allow new users to read news, this form must be used to
authorize them to read news.
HOW IT WORKS
If authorization is enabled, the nn news reader will call nnacct on
start-up to check whether the policy and quota defined for the current
user allows him to read news at this time (or at all).
If accounting is enabled, the nn news reader will call nnacct on exit
to register the time spent on news reading. If account logging is also
defined (see account.c), an line is also added to the accounting log
file.
When accounting is defined, the user can use the :cost command to get
the current accounting data, and if the variable report-cost is set, nn
will print accounting information on exit.
CONTIGURATION AND NEW POLICIES
The use of nnacct is enabled via the ACCOUNTING and AUTHORIZE symbols
in nn's configuration file. Further configuration of cost calcula‐
tions, logging, default policy, default quotas, etc. is done directly
in the source file account.c. New access policies can also be defined
in this file. This allows you to change the policies or prices without
having to recompile the whole package since only nnacct is modified.
PRIVILEGED USERS
Normally, only root is allowed to change user policy or quota, list all
user's accounting data etc. This privilege can be shared with other
users by listing their login name in the file $CLIENT/admins. There
should be exactly one login name per line, and no blanks are allowed.
FILES
$db/acct accounting data (accumulated per user)
$db/acctlog accounting log (grows indefinitely)
$lib/admins login names of privileged nnacct users.
SEE ALSOnn(1), nnusage(1)BUGS
There should be some tools to mess around with the accounting files,
e.g. to make summaries, clear usage counters, etc.
AUTHOR
Kim F. Storm, Texas Instruments A/S, Denmark
E-mail: storm@texas.dk
4th Berkeley Distribution Release 6.6 NNACCT(1m)
