
		ACSnet Accounting

		Author: Burnard Alting
			University Computer Services
			Sydney University
			burn@metro.ucc.su.oz

Message origin or destination is either a machine or particular user.

What does one charge for?

	State messages are to be considered as an overhead but it would be
nice if state messages "cascaded" through the network. That is, a site
would send state messages only to directly connected sites.

	Reporter messages are a special case and charging should be left
to the site concerned (the one who pays for the line).

	For all other messages the originator should pay except when his/her
message results in an automatic return message, which covers:-
	acswhois, mail from O/S, fetchfiles, ack messages and errors.

The minimal information required is -

	message originator
	message destination
	message size
	message time stamp
	is message an automatic result of a previous message (whois, etc).

The main problem is in the extraction of this info. since there is no 
standard location in a message for originator, destination, and, worst of all,
if this message is an automatic result of a previous message.

Watergate attempts to get this info for you. What you do with it and
how you interpret it is up to you.

Installation and operation.

1)	For each link you want monitored, create a file called
	ON.site in the _accts directory.

2)	Set up _lib/watergate as the filter for that site.
	(See acsstate(1) for the "filter" command.)

3)	As messages pass through the link a file, "_accts/site" will grow
	with records (see above).

4)	Have a look at the awk scripts to see what one can do with the data.


I know that Prof. Dave Davey (dave@physiol.physiol.su.oz) has made other
mods re the restricting of what users can transmit over links etc.
