FS#489 - /var/run/utmp not correctly updated with kernel 2.6.3

Attached to Project: Arch Linux
Opened by Andreas Weggel (andreasw) - Friday, 27 February 2004, 19:14 GMT
Last edited by Judd Vinet (judd) - Friday, 27 February 2004, 19:45 GMT
Task Type Bug Report
Category System
Status Closed
Assigned To Judd Vinet (judd)
Architecture not specified
Severity Medium
Priority Normal
Reported Version 0.6 Widget
Due in Version Undecided
Due Date Undecided
Percent Complete 0%
Votes 0
Private No

Details

the file /var/run/utmp is not updated correctly when a user is logging out.

If you log in with a user and than logout (maybe try more times, it sometimes shows this behavior at once), the user is still in the /var/run/utmp databases, so programs like who, finger, userdel will not work correct.

I noticed that bug while trying to delete a user which was not logged on, but deluser telled me it was.

So I executed who and it showed the user, but the users wasn't logged in.

In order to solve that problem I tried a lot of things, finally I succeeded with using the 2.4.25 kernel instead of the 2.6.3 kernel.

But I don't know the exact context
This task depends upon

Closed by  Judd Vinet (judd)
Friday, 17 September 2004, 23:41 GMT
Reason for closing:  Fixed
Comment by Christiano Farina Haesbaert (cartridge) - Tuesday, 02 March 2004, 20:53 GMT
well i have the same problem on 2.6.2, i compiled it myself ( didnt made the package ).
first, i think the problem isnt really on the /var/run/utmp, i believe that its correct because the command "w" show correctly who is logged in, and its based on /var/run/utmp, i´ve also noted that who belongs to coreutils and w to procps, so i believe the problem is in coreutils, maybe it need to be recompiled in a 2.6 kernel to work ? dont know.
i have a gentoo machine running kernel 2.6.3 and who works fine, so i think its not a kernel problem.
good luck :)
Comment by Christiano Farina Haesbaert (cartridge) - Tuesday, 02 March 2004, 20:55 GMT
well i have the same problem on 2.6.2, i compiled it myself ( didnt made the package ).
first, i think the problem isnt really on the /var/run/utmp, i believe that its correct because the command "w" show correctly who is logged in, and its based on /var/run/utmp, i´ve also noted that who belongs to coreutils and w to procps, so i believe the problem is in coreutils, maybe it need to be recompiled in a 2.6 kernel to work ? dont know.
i have a gentoo machine running kernel 2.6.3 and who works fine, so i think its not a kernel problem.
good luck :)
Comment by Andreas Weggel (andreasw) - Tuesday, 02 March 2004, 21:02 GMT
if you look exactly to the w output it says x users (x stands for the number of users and the x value is also wrong...)

but w uses ps to display the processes which are ran by the users and because the users who are incorrectly displayed don't have any processes it only shows the processes of the really logged in users.

So it is an /var/run/utmp problem which for me only occurs while using the 2.6.3 kernel (didn't test any previous version of 2.6.)

Andy
Comment by Christiano Farina Haesbaert (cartridge) - Wednesday, 03 March 2004, 08:39 GMT
hmm you're right.
Comment by Christiano Farina Haesbaert (cartridge) - Wednesday, 03 March 2004, 21:35 GMT
well today i´ve just installed arch 0.6 from ftp in another box with kernel 2.6.3 and it works correcly :/.
i used the default kernel26.
Comment by Andreas Weggel (andreasw) - Wednesday, 03 March 2004, 21:42 GMT
lucky one :)
Comment by Christiano Farina Haesbaert (cartridge) - Thursday, 04 March 2004, 03:33 GMT
well something new, when i got home, i make a package of the kernel 2.6.3 based on the config given from arch's abs, i changed very few things and guess what, it works perfecly now :).
now im really confused.
good luck guys.
Comment by Christiano Farina Haesbaert (cartridge) - Thursday, 04 March 2004, 03:34 GMT
opps correcting... "i maDe a package of kernel...."
Comment by Judd Vinet (judd) - Thursday, 04 March 2004, 17:03 GMT
2.6.4 should be out soon. I'll wait til that, and we'll see if the problem is still there.
Comment by Andreas Weggel (andreasw) - Sunday, 14 March 2004, 18:56 GMT
unforunatelly it is the same problem with 2.6.4. with Mandrake 10 (it uses 2.6.3) which I testet the last 3 days I don't have such a problem so I think it is some kind of configuration problem arch related.

I will try building a custom kernel which only contains stuff I need and try it again.

I will also try it on my laptop.
Comment by Dale Blount (dale) - Monday, 26 July 2004, 19:07 GMT
This problem is still around, as far as I can tell it's not kernel specific but rather has to do with utmp being rotated.
Comment by Dale Blount (dale) - Tuesday, 31 August 2004, 21:11 GMT
Or rather, with utmp being overwritten by a "filesystem" upgrade maybe?

I've noticed that runlevel /var/run/utmp fails at certain times, at I think this is why.
Comment by Judd Vinet (judd) - Friday, 17 September 2004, 23:41 GMT
I think I've got that fixed in the latest filesystem package.

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