Setting Up Nonprime-Time Discounts

UNIX system accounting provides facilities to give users a discount for nonprime-time system use. To make this arrangement work, you must inform the accounting system of the dates of holidays and the hours that are considered nonprime-time, such as weekends.

Use this procedure to inform the accounting system of the dates of holidays and nonprime-time.

1. Edit the /etc/acct/holidays file, which contains the prime/nonprime table for the accounting system.

2. Add or change lines, as appropriate, for the days you want to consider holidays and the times you want to consider nonprime.

   There are three types of entries. Here is the format for each:

   
   Comment

   Comment lines are marked by an asterisk in the first column of the line. Comment lines may appear anywhere in the file.

   
   Year Designation

   The year is shown on the first data line (noncomment line) in the file and must appear only once. If you do not specify the current year, error messages will be sent to the designated user with appropriate privileges. The line consists of three fields of four digits each (leading white space is ignored). For example, to specify the year as 1992, prime-time start at 9:00 A.M., and nonprime-time start at 4:30 P.M., include the following entry:

   1992  0900   1630
   

   In the time field, the time 2400 is automatically converted to 0000.

   
   Company Holidays

   These entries follow the year designation line and have the following general format:
   
   date description

   The date field has the format month/day and indicates the date of the holiday. The holiday field is actually commentary and is not currently used by other programs. Here is an example holiday list.

   Month/Day	Holiday
   1/1	New Year's Day
   5/28	Memorial Day
   7/4	Independence Day
   9/3	Labor Day
   11/22	Thanksgiving Day
   11/23	Day after Thanksgiving
   12/25	Christmas Day