utmp and wtmp

Paula J. Lindsay paula at scripps.edu
Thu Jul 3 18:23:45 UTC 2008


Hi everyone,
I have a scientist that runs an instrument in her lab.  She uses utmp 
and logrotate to rotate the wtmp file and then
at the beginning of the month, she records everyone's logging in and out 
usage on her RHE 5 machine so she
can charge them for the use of the instrument.  Sometimes students and 
other doctor's run experiments all night.
Well, I have her RHE 5 machine rotating every month at the beginning of 
the month, it does this at midnight.
The problem is that whoever is logged in at that  time is dropped and 
the utmp doesn't continue to record his/her
time on the machine.  They could be on there for another 5 hours, but it 
doesn't pick up that user again.  Is there
any way to make the utmp pick up that user or continue recording that 
user when the logs are processing again?
I know this is somewhat of an irritating quirk, but it is important to 
her to find out when the person logs back out
so she doesn't charge him too much or too little.  Any 
help/advice/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  Many
thanks in advance.
Paula

-- 
Paula J. Lindsay
IT Analyst III
IT Services
10550 North Torrey Pines Road
La Jolla, CA  92037
858.784.9378 (office)
858.784.9301 (fax)
paula at scripps.edu




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