The who command

[Rick Stevens]

On Thu, 2006-06-29 at 11:55 -0400, Mark McCulligh wrote:
> Hi Group,
> 
> When I log into my system and run the who command I get no users. If I 
> look at my uptime is says 0 users. Plus if I view the lastlog file it 
> looks like it is corrupt.  How I am fix this?

"who" is based on what's in /var/log/utmp or /var/log/wtmp.  If one of
those files is not present, who can't report on users.  However,
/var/log/wtmp is MANDATORY on Linux and is created by init if it does
not exist.

Now, have you tried "who" as the root user?  You should see AT LEAST
your login.  If you see nothing if you run "who" as a normal user,
then /var/log/wtmp is not set world-readable.  If you wish to allow
normal users to run "who", then do this as the root user:

	# chmod ugo+r /var/log/wtmp

and it should work.

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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
- Life:  That which happens while you search for the remote control. -
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