user disappears from w and who

[Brandon Lodriguss]

Hello,

I'm wondering if anyone else has witnessed this phenomenon in FreeBSD
5.3-Release who could perhaps tell me if it's an oddity/configuration
error with my system, or a problem with this version.  I had a 4.10
box that this does not happen on, similarly configured.

The steps to reproduce the problem:
Log in via ssh.
Type login, log in again to a second shell within your existing shell.
Type w or who.  At this point, no IP or hostname should be listed for
you, and you only show up once.  This is normal behavior, and has
happened in all versions of fbsd since i can remember.
Type exit to return to your original shell.
Do a w or who now...

At this point on my system, you are no longer listed in w or who, and
the user count in w is incorrect.  The only indication that you are
still logged in is an active sshd process/connection.  If you type
last <username>, it does not say "still logged in...".  You can,
however, snoop on the original tty as root using the watch command,
even if the user is invisible (provided you noticed what tty the user
was assigned before he went invisible.)

I have heard that wtmp is slow to update, but have left myself logged
in "invisible" like this for upwards of 15 minutes at a time, and the
problem does not correct itself.

Has anyone seen this behavior before?  Did I misconfigure something?

Thanks!

Brandon Lodriguss