[26437] in Athena Bugs
phantom root login issue
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michael C Spindel)
Mon May 23 01:08:35 2005
Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 01:07:55 -0400 (EDT)
From: Michael C Spindel <mspindel@mit.edu>
To: bugs@mit.edu
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I just ran into an issue in which finger and who will report root as
logged in when it isn't. I've only been able to test it with root, but it
probably applies to other user accounts.
Steps to reproduce (tested on an IBM ThinkCentre):
1) log in as root, logout
2) log in as someone else
3) execute finger or who
Example output:
[mspindel@m56-129-11]:~> finger
finger: /var/log/lastlog open error
Local:
Login Name TTY Idle When Office
root root p1 8 Mon 00:56
mspindel Michael C Spindel p0 8 Mon 00:56
[mspindel@m56-129-11]:~> who
root pts/1 May 23 00:56 (:0.0)
mspindel pts/0 May 23 00:56 (:0.0)
I don't know if this matters, but here are the apparent permissions on
lastlog:
[mspindel@m56-129-11]:log> ls -l lastlog
-r-------- 1 root root 19136220 May 23 00:56 lastlog
This doesn't look like a terribly serious issue, but it certainly startled
me the first time i saw it.
-- mike
