Adding accounting functions to an earlier release of Slackware

[gregg dot drwho8 atsign gmail dot com]

Hello!
Roughly twenty years ago I used Slackware Current which would have become 7.2 if it was released to build a customer a server. This server supported an odd dialing in client, which would have also been Linux, but not necessarily Slackware, but also other earlier distributions.

It's been in service for that long, and I've even put the software, the OS and somethings that I wrote then, got themselves moved to a new disk drive, and the same size.

Problem is that he (or I) need to know what's running and how to bill each user appropriately. Now I have accounting running on a Slackware-11.0 system and it tells me all of that. Do any of you have any ideas on how to backport the functions produced by the accounting utilities from say 9.0 to that release?
----
Gregg ***@gmail.com

[Henrik Carlqvist]

On Fri, 22 Jul 2022 15:49:48 -0700, gregg dot drwho8 atsign gmail dot com

Post by gregg dot drwho8 atsign gmail dot com
Roughly twenty years ago I used Slackware Current which would have
become 7.2 if it was released to build a customer a server.

You are probably on your own here, not many people still run so old
versions of Slackware and even less run a snapshot of the unstable
current from that time.

Post by gregg dot drwho8 atsign gmail dot com
Problem is that he (or I) need to know what's running and how to bill
each user appropriately. Now I have accounting running on a
Slackware-11.0 system and it tells me all of that. Do any of you have
any ideas on how to backport the functions produced by the accounting
utilities from say 9.0 to that release?

As you say, it seems as if the acct package was added in Slackware 9.0. A
first try would be to download the source code of that package with its
build script and see if it compiles also on your old installation. The
sources can be found on mirrors like:

https://ftp.acc.umu.se/mirror/slackware.com/slackware-9.0/source/ap/acct/

If you are lucky, everything might work out of the box. If you are rather
lucky, some minor changes to the source might be needed to compile on
your older version. If you are unlucky, acct depends upon some feature in
glibc or the kernel that is missing in your installation. I would not
recomend trying to upgrade glibc or the kernel on your old system,
instead I would try to port your applications and configuration to a
stable and still supported version of Slackware like Slackware 15.0.

regards Henrik

[Prt Christensen]

Post by Henrik Carlqvist
On Fri, 22 Jul 2022 15:49:48 -0700, gregg dot drwho8 atsign gmail dot com

Post by gregg dot drwho8 atsign gmail dot com
Roughly twenty years ago I used Slackware Current which would have
become 7.2 if it was released to build a customer a server.

You are probably on your own here, not many people still run so old
versions of Slackware and even less run a snapshot of the unstable
current from that time.

Post by gregg dot drwho8 atsign gmail dot com
Problem is that he (or I) need to know what's running and how to bill
each user appropriately. Now I have accounting running on a
Slackware-11.0 system and it tells me all of that. Do any of you have
any ideas on how to backport the functions produced by the accounting
utilities from say 9.0 to that release?

As you say, it seems as if the acct package was added in Slackware 9.0. A
first try would be to download the source code of that package with its
build script and see if it compiles also on your old installation. The
https://ftp.acc.umu.se/mirror/slackware.com/slackware-9.0/source/ap/acct/
If you are lucky, everything might work out of the box. If you are rather
lucky, some minor changes to the source might be needed to compile on
your older version. If you are unlucky, acct depends upon some feature in
glibc or the kernel that is missing in your installation. I would not
recomend trying to upgrade glibc or the kernel on your old system,
instead I would try to port your applications and configuration to a
stable and still supported version of Slackware like Slackware 15.0.
regards Henrik

A comment only for info, and just a suggestion if dependent of an old
machine:

GNU acct 6.6.4 (2017 - obtained from http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/acct/ ) will
build from source without warnings or notes on 32 bit Slackware 14.2. I
guess 14.2 will install on a P4 or above.

To install the traditional way (we all know!): copy as root
acct-6.6.4.tar.gz to /usr/src and untar with:

"tar -xvf acct-6.6.4.tar.gz"

Navigate into /usr/src/acct-6.6.4 and configure with

"./configure"

(the --prefix flag did not work for me).Run

"make" and "make install"

The upgrade of acct will as I see it be incremental (from 6.3.2 to
6.6.4) and with high probability client files will be recognized without
problems if copied to the right location. The executables ac, accton,
last, lastcomm and dump-acct all seems to work on 14.2 - but as said -
only a suggestion :)