/var/log/account/pacct is getting too big, where is ckpacct (to cicle/gzip it)?

Solution 1:

The script that cycles the logs is in /etc/cron.daily/acct. The number of log files is controlled by /etc/default/acct, which also controls whether process accounting should be enabled at boot time.

If you want to entirely remove process accounting, sudo apt-get purge acct should do the trick too.

Solution 2:

Get the acct cron to cron.hourly instead of daily. Then, put this values in /etc/default/acct:

ACCT_ENABLE="1"

# Amount of days that the logs are kept.
ACCT_LOGGING="2" # you cannot set this less than 2 
                 # if you don't want acct to get an error