Re: Problem with who

[Bob Proulx]

Paul Eggert wrote:
> address@hidden (Bob Proulx) writes:
> > The who program really can't do anything more than this.  This also
> > applies to the other utmp programs such as finger and w.
> 
> But the interesting thing is that finger and w do do more than this;
> the omit the dangling entry somehow.

Hmm...  Interesting.  I often use w but only rarely use finger.  I
can't say I remember for sure I am pretty sure I have seen dangling
ptys from w too.  I will keep an eye open for them.

> > If you log in again and again and walk up through the devices an entry
> > that you have logged into that tty or pty device will be made and will
> > then clean out the old entry.
> 
> That doesn't always work for me.

It would be useful to have a utmp scrubber that could fsck-like check
the file for integrity and fix it when it has errors.  Of course what
we really need is a better interface entirely.  But I can't think of
one at the moment.  It is not a kernel thing so a /proc interface does
not seem appropriate.  And all of my other thoughts lead back to a
utmp file.

Bob