I'm setting up a Cyber Cafe(with imacs) and I need to find some Mac OS
X software/method to monitor user login time in order to bill for
computer usage. Perhaps something that will even go so far as print
out an invoice when the user logs off?

---

Clarification of Question by corbob-ga on 14 Aug 2002 10:26 PDT

I have a varied programming and unix background, but I'm not very
familiar with OS X. If someone could point me in the correct direction
toward programming an app such as this for OS X, I'd be happy with
that answer as well.

Hello Corbob,

I will assume you are familiar with writing scripts and the command
line (from the terminal application). I have at least two ideas you
should be able to use to collect the information you need.

[1] From a terminal window, type
  apropos account
to get the following list...
ac(8)                    - connect time accounting
acct(2)                  - enable or disable process accounting
acct(5)                  - execution accounting file
accton(8)                - enable/disable system accounting

These are the man pages that describe the per user accounting that was
introduced in AT&T Unix a *long* time ago (15-20 years ago?). For
example, on my system...
  ac -d
lists the following information...
Aug  9  total      147.92
Aug 10  total       23.96
Aug 11  total       24.00
Aug 13  total       47.96
Aug 14  total       19.81
(I am not sure why the system charged me for 148 hours of use in a 24
hour day :-) on August 9th. The command
  ac -p
lists the following information...
        maniac     263.67
        total      263.67
which should sum to the values above. Ac is a very simple program, if
you need more complicated accounting (other than hours per day), you
will have to write a program. In case you don't know, enter
  man 8 ac
to get information about the system administrative program named ac or
enter
  man 1 man
to get information about the man program itself.

[2] Customize the system with a "login hook" and "logoff hook". For
information, check out...

http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/macosx/Essentials/SystemOverview/BootingLogin/Customization_Techniques.html

which describes a number of customizations. Basically, you can specify
a script or application which runs at login and logout (as well as
disable the reboot and shutdown commands). Check related pages on
Apple's web site for more detail.

If you need to search for more data, I suggest search phrases such as
"acct", "accounting", "login hook", "macosx", "unix" and similar
phrases for more sites to get information.

  --Maniac

Exactly what I needed!  Thanks much