Re: /var/log/wtmp problem

[René Berber <rberber at prodigy dot net dot mx>]

Jurgen Defurne wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> Can someone explain for what /var/log/wtmp is used ?
> 
> It seems that this file grows very quickly in our Cygwin environment, and 
> I
> want to find out which programs write to this file. /var/log/wtmp gets
> an update almost every two seconds here.
> 
> We do not use very much programs, I think this covers the complete
> list :
> - screen (no reference to wtmp found in info)
> - bash (standard shell)
> - Perl (background programs/ exec ?)
> - ssh
> - rxvt
> - watch

You can find some info about it in man last:

NAME
       last, lastb - show listing of last logged in users

SYNOPSIS
       last [-R] [-num] [ -n num ] [-adiox] [ -f file ] [name...]  [tty...]
       lastb [-R] [-num] [ -n num ] [ -f file ] [-adiox] [name...]  [tty...]

DESCRIPTION
       Last  searches  back through the file /var/log/wtmp (or the file desig-
       nated by the -f flag) and displays a list of all users logged  in  (and
       out)  since  that  file  was  created.  Names of users and tty's can be
       given, in which case last will show only  those  entries  matching  the
       arguments.   Names  of ttys can be abbreviated, thus last 0 is the same
       as last tty0.
...

If your wtmp is growing that much you have a problem I haven't seen, take a look
at the output of "last | head" .

HTH
-- 
René Berber


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