[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > My problem is that users are showing up the output of who that are not > logged in. The output of ps shows that the users reported to be loged in > by who have no active processes (or orphined processes). Also, the users > that the comman w shows differs from who. The command w shows users that > have processes that show in ps.
I have seen that problem before too. It appears to occur when the processes associated with a terminal are killed in a way that no update of the /var/run/utmp file can be made. At that time the system leaves information dangling there. The way utmp works is that when a user logs in an entry is made. When a user logs out the entry removed. If something disrupts that process causing the "removes" to not equal the "adds" then the system will never deduce this and correct it. The who program simply prints out the information from the utmp file. So whatever information it contains is what is printed. The who program really can't do anything more than this. This also applies to the other utmp programs such as finger and w. If you log in again and again and walk up through the devices an entry that you have logged into that tty or pty device will be made and will then clean out the old entry. Then when you log out it will be removed. By that method you can clean up dangling entries. Bob _______________________________________________ Bug-coreutils mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-coreutils
