id	summary	reporter	owner	description	type	status	priority	milestone	component	version	severity	resolution	keywords	cc
512	Deleting and re-creating utmp/wtmp - maybe stop doing so?	gerard@…	lfs-book@…	"From Archaic:

According to the manpage:

Warning: utmp must not be writable, because many system programs
(foolishly) depend on its  integrity.   You risk faked system logfiles
and modifications of system files if you leave utmp writable to any
user.

But then:

BUGS: This manpage is based on the libc5 one, things may work differently
now.

Then from info utmp:

The user accounting database typically lives in `/etc/utmp',
`/var/adm/utmp' or `/var/run/utmp'.  However, these files should
*never* be accessed directly.  For reading information from and writing
information to the user accounting database, the functions described in
this section should be used.

Which brings me to /etc/rc.d/init.d/cleanfs:

echo ""Creating new /var/run/utmp...""
touch /var/run/utmp && chmod 644 /var/run/utmp
evaluate_retval

Should we perhaps change it, or is this sufficient? Also, what about
deleting and re-creating wtmp? It's all still a little fuzzy with that
one."	defect	closed	high		Book	CVS	normal	invalid