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From: lane@sumex-aim.stanford.edu (Christopher Lane)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: A small bug in Communicae...
Message-ID: <1186@shelby.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 18 Jan 90 16:51:59 GMT
Sender: daemon@shelby.Stanford.EDU
Lines: 18

We use MOTD's {Login,Logout}Hook routines to maintain 'wtmp' and 'lastlog'.

For our NeXTs, I've also turned off the setuid bit on Terminal to keep it from
adding wtmp login entries (for which there may be no companion logout
entries).  This causes complaint messages to show up in /usr/adm/messages
every time Terminal fails to write the 'wtmp' file, but it still runs OK.

This helps us get better time accounting information from 'last' and reduces
the number of 'ghost' users showing up in 'who' & 'finger' (and other
problems).

Unfortunately, Shell continues to cause both 'ghost' users and open ended
'wtmp' entries since we can't turn off its setuid bit and still run it--Shell
won't open a new window if it can't write the 'wtmp' file. (So much for
software consistency checking ;-)

- Christopher
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