[168] in SIPB_Linux_Development
That damn last log!!
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (svalente@mit.edu)
Fri Oct 8 00:06:02 1993
From: svalente@mit.edu
Date: Fri, 8 Oct 93 00:06:53 -0400
To: linux-dev@mit.edu
Ok, as we all know, I've been obsessed with figuring out why "last"
never works on Keesh, and here are some things I've come up with.
1) The location of the "wtmp" file. There seems to be some
disagreement over this. All the stuff that originally came with the
SLS (like login, last, init) look for it in /etc. Newer stuff (like
the net-2 binaries and the current libc) look for it in /usr/adm.
(The kerberos stuff looks for it there, since it was built with the
new libc include files.) I've symlinked /usr/adm/wtmp to /etc/wtmp.
This seems like the best solution until there's total agreement on
where the file should be.
2) The "last" program that comes with the SLS is crap. One of it's
bugs is that it doesn't fully handle BSD-style wtmp entries, which is
what xlogin makes. I built "last" from the BSD sources, and that
seems to work ok.
3) I think I found (and fixed) a bug in "getty" that screws up wtmp.
I sent mail to the maintainer of "getty" documenting it. The mail I
sent him is in /mit/linux/bugs/getty-bug. Look it over, see if you
agree.
Have a nice day.
-Sal.
