Philip Webb writes:
> In /var/log/ there is a file wtmp , which is 24 MB & owned by utmp
> . It is in binary format & is updated when I reboot.
> Can anyone explain what it's for & whether it cb safely deleted ?
It tracks logins, you can use the 'last' command to show its contents. I'm
pretty sure it's safe to delete it, but you should create it as empty file
afterwards (touch /var/log/wtmp), otherwise the system will not make use of
it again.
If wou want to get the space, I suggest compressing the file, it will be
much much smaller then:
bzip2 -v /var/log/wtmp
touch /var/log/wtmp
Also see the man pages for wtmp and last.
Wonko
