FS#23240 - [filesystem] add utmp group in the default /etc/group

Attached to Project: Arch Linux
Opened by Greg (dolby) - Friday, 11 March 2011, 12:16 GMT
Last edited by Pierre Schmitz (Pierre) - Friday, 08 April 2011, 10:03 GMT
Task Type Feature Request
Category Packages: Core
Status Closed
Assigned To Pierre Schmitz (Pierre)
Architecture All
Severity Medium
Priority Normal
Reported Version
Due in Version Undecided
Due Date Undecided
Percent Complete 100%
Votes 1
Private No

Details

A utmp group is needed for members of the group to be able to write in /var/run/utmp.

See  FS#19392 

PS.The permissions of /var/run/utmp also need to be changed to 0644 root:utmp so /etc/rc.sysinit needs to change as well. A different FS# will be opened for that.
This task depends upon

This task blocks these from closing
 FS#23309 - [initscripts] add utmp group support 
Closed by  Pierre Schmitz (Pierre)
Friday, 08 April 2011, 10:03 GMT
Reason for closing:  Implemented
Comment by Greg (dolby) - Thursday, 17 March 2011, 09:10 GMT
Opened  FS#23309  for rc.sysinit
Comment by Pierre Schmitz (Pierre) - Thursday, 17 March 2011, 09:19 GMT
It would be nice to explain what the benefit of this change would be. (would speed things up as I don't need to do any research myself ;-))
Comment by Greg (dolby) - Thursday, 17 March 2011, 10:17 GMT
It is described quite clearly in  FS#19392  but heres a short(er) version:

As can be read in utmp(5) the /var/run/utmp file exists in order to record information about who is currently using the system.
Right now, none of the terminal emulators in Arch has support for it. If a user has logged in from an xterm, instead of a tty, utmp is not updated so who(1) which "shows who is logged on" wont show that user as logged in.
For that to work properly the terminal emulators need either to be compiled with libutempter ( https://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=26483 ) support , which works only for xterm and gnu screen AFAIK, or create a utmp group and recompile all the terminal emulators with whatever is needed for them to be able to write to the /var/run/utmp file. https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/19392#comment61413 describes what eterm , aterm and urxvt need, gathered from their man pages, for xterm also in https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/19392#comment61383 . The later way seems to work universally.

edit: correction, this is an issue only non vte terminal emulators, not all, including tmux and screen.
Comment by Tom Gundersen (tomegun) - Saturday, 26 March 2011, 11:09 GMT
Since <http://projects.archlinux.org/initscripts.git/commit/?id=0e4ff39e5a5c72b7d4e8d251d029d4342f68b7b6>, initscripts now uses the utmp group, so it would be nice to have this in the standard group file.
Comment by Greg (dolby) - Saturday, 26 March 2011, 11:18 GMT
See my reply in  FS#23309  . That commit wont do.
Comment by Tom Gundersen (tomegun) - Saturday, 26 March 2011, 11:27 GMT
@Greg: sorry, you were right, I was too fast in reading the commit. I agree with adding the utmp group though, if this FS is implemented, and utmp added to /etc/group I'll apply your patch to initscripts.

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