Utmpx usage

[Ed Schouten]

Hi Chris!

* Chris Rees <utisoft at gmail.com>, 20110522 09:29:
> Hi all,
> 
> After removing all kittens from Ed's reach, I'm disclosing that
> sysutils/runit tried to use utmpx to directly read() and write() the
> utmpx files directly...
> 
> I've replaced the offending code with a patch to the port [1], but I
> wonder if anyone would please review the patch? I don't have a CURRENT
> machine to try it on... I may have also made some terrible mistakes --
> I'm not hugely familiar with utmpx.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Chris
> 
> [1] http://www.bayofrum.net/~crees/patches/runit-utmpx.patch

As promised, I would look at your patch this evening. I've changed the
cc to ports@, since it's likely a better place to discuss this.

First of all, you can remove the getutxent()/endutxent() calls; at least
on FreeBSD (but even on Solaris -- the first OS to implement utmpx)
pututxline() is implemented separately from the read-functions. There is
no need to open the database for reading.

Secondly, please make sure you set the proper fields of the utmpx
structure. Always zero it (e.g. with memset()) before calling
pututxline() to prevent random junk from ending up in the log files.
Also, for DEAD_PROCESS must we set ut_id, but not ut_line. ut_id must be
set to one of the identifiers of an existing session. These identifiers
can be set to arbitrary values by the application that added the entry.
Some apps are lazy and just put the TTY name in there, but you cannot
assume that that's the case. Run `getent utmpx active' to see what the
identifiers look like. For example, pam_lastlog(8) uses random
identifiers. You must also set ut_tv, even though our implementation
does it for you.

Finally, I'm not really sure what the code is trying to solve here.
What's the use of implementing an utmp_logout(), to simulate logouts on
the utmp database, without actually providing code to perform logins?
Maybe we should just patch runit to leave utmp(x) alone. So far I don't
have a feeling it's trying to do something useful with it.

Any opinions, anyone?

-- 
 Ed Schouten <ed at 80386.nl>
 WWW: http://80386.nl/
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