GNU bug report logs - #21349
who shows no users nowadays on Debian

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: 積丹尼 Dan Jacobson <jidanni <at> jidanni.org>
To: bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org
Subject: who shows no users nowadays on Debian
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2015 07:14:41 +0800

(info "(coreutils) who invocation") says

If given no non-option arguments, ‘who’ prints the following
information for each user currently logged on: login name, terminal
line, login time, and remote hostname or X display.

Say if this means
remote hostname or remote X display.

or

X display or remote hostname.

By the way, now on Debian sid:

$ who
$ ps a
  PID TTY      STAT   TIME COMMAND
  593 tty7     Ss+    0:10 /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg :0 -nolisten tcp vt7
 1310 pts/0    Ss     0:00 bash
 1338 pts/1    Ss     0:00 su -
 1339 pts/1    S+     0:00 -su
 2005 tty1     Ss+    0:00 /sbin/agetty --noclear tty1 linux
 2073 pts/0    R+     0:00 ps a

Message #8 received at 21349 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Pádraig Brady <P <at> draigBrady.com>
To: 積丹尼 Dan Jacobson <jidanni <at> jidanni.org>, 
 21349 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#21349: who shows no users nowadays on Debian
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2015 01:59:07 +0100

On 26/08/15 00:14, 積丹尼 Dan Jacobson wrote:
> (info "(coreutils) who invocation") says
> 
> If given no non-option arguments, ‘who’ prints the following
> information for each user currently logged on: login name, terminal
> line, login time, and remote hostname or X display.
> 
> Say if this means
> remote hostname or remote X display.
> 
> or
> 
> X display or remote hostname.
> 
> By the way, now on Debian sid:
> 
> $ who
> $ ps a
>   PID TTY      STAT   TIME COMMAND
>   593 tty7     Ss+    0:10 /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg :0 -nolisten tcp vt7
>  1310 pts/0    Ss     0:00 bash
>  1338 pts/1    Ss     0:00 su -
>  1339 pts/1    S+     0:00 -su
>  2005 tty1     Ss+    0:00 /sbin/agetty --noclear tty1 linux
>  2073 pts/0    R+     0:00 ps a

Could you look a little deeper?
who(1) calls read_utmp() from:
http://git.sv.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=gnulib.git;a=blob;f=lib/readutmp.c;hb=HEAD

thanks,
Pádraig.

Message #11 received at 21349 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: 積丹尼 Dan Jacobson <jidanni <at> jidanni.org>
To: Pádraig Brady <P <at> draigBrady.com>
Cc: 21349 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#21349: who shows no users nowadays on Debian
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2015 09:05:45 +0800

All I know is nowadays everybody (me) uses just X windows so to achieve
the who goals:

NAME
       who - show who is logged on
DESCRIPTION
       Print information about users who are currently logged in.

some adjustments should be made. Else it looks like there are no users
and maintenance can begin, etc.

Message #14 received at 21349 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Erik Auerswald <auerswal <at> unix-ag.uni-kl.de>
To: 積丹尼 Dan Jacobson <jidanni <at> jidanni.org>
Cc: 21349 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#21349: who shows no users nowadays on Debian
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2015 09:02:50 +0200

Hi Dan,

On Wed, Aug 26, 2015 at 07:14:41AM +0800, 積丹尼 Dan Jacobson wrote:
> (info "(coreutils) who invocation") says
> 
> If given no non-option arguments, ‘who’ prints the following
> information for each user currently logged on: login name, terminal
> line, login time, and remote hostname or X display.
> 
> Say if this means
> remote hostname or remote X display.
> 
> or
> 
> X display or remote hostname.
> 
> By the way, now on Debian sid:
> 
> $ who
> $ ps a
>   PID TTY      STAT   TIME COMMAND
>   593 tty7     Ss+    0:10 /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg :0 -nolisten tcp vt7
>  1310 pts/0    Ss     0:00 bash
>  1338 pts/1    Ss     0:00 su -
>  1339 pts/1    S+     0:00 -su
>  2005 tty1     Ss+    0:00 /sbin/agetty --noclear tty1 linux
>  2073 pts/0    R+     0:00 ps a

This works on a current Debian/testing system (stable as well), so it might
be a recent Debian/Sid (unstable) issue. Perhaps you want to open a bug
report there?

Thanks,
Erik

Message #17 received at 21349 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Bob Proulx <bob <at> proulx.com>
To: Erik Auerswald <auerswal <at> unix-ag.uni-kl.de>
Cc: 21349 <at> debbugs.gnu.org,
 積丹尼 Dan Jacobson <jidanni <at> jidanni.org>
Subject: Re: bug#21349: who shows no users nowadays on Debian
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2015 14:13:37 -0600

Erik Auerswald wrote:
> This works on a current Debian/testing system (stable as well), so it might
> be a recent Debian/Sid (unstable) issue. Perhaps you want to open a bug
> report there?

Updating utmp depends upon the terminal emulator.  XTerm updates it.
Any XTerm user will be logged in utmp.  I use XTerms and all of my
terminals log as a user in utmp.  But most other terminal emulators
ignore utmp and don't log anything.  If they don't log it then there
isn't anything 'who' can do about it.

AFAIK it doesn't have anything to do with Debian changing anything.
It is all about the changing state of Desktop Environments.  For the
graphical mouse user today they have exactly one "login" now and that
is the entirety of the graphical environment and they never launch a
terminal emulator.

Bob

Message #20 received at 21349 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Sven Joachim <svenjoac <at> gmx.de>
To: Bob Proulx <bob <at> proulx.com>
Cc: Erik Auerswald <auerswal <at> unix-ag.uni-kl.de>, 21349 <at> debbugs.gnu.org,
 積丹尼 Dan Jacobson <jidanni <at> jidanni.org>
Subject: Re: bug#21349: who shows no users nowadays on Debian
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2015 22:31:13 +0200

On 2015-08-26 22:13 +0200, Bob Proulx wrote:

> Erik Auerswald wrote:
>> This works on a current Debian/testing system (stable as well), so it might
>> be a recent Debian/Sid (unstable) issue. Perhaps you want to open a bug
>> report there?
>
> Updating utmp depends upon the terminal emulator.  XTerm updates it.
> Any XTerm user will be logged in utmp.  I use XTerms and all of my
> terminals log as a user in utmp.  But most other terminal emulators
> ignore utmp and don't log anything.  If they don't log it then there
> isn't anything 'who' can do about it.
>
> AFAIK it doesn't have anything to do with Debian changing anything.

It most probably has, the latest xterm version (319) only writes a utmp
entry if you start a login shell (i.e. use the -ls option).  That's
supposed to be a bug fix[1].

Cheers,
       Sven


1. https://bugs.debian.org/794201

Message #23 received at 21349 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Bob Proulx <bob <at> proulx.com>
To: Sven Joachim <svenjoac <at> gmx.de>
Cc: Erik Auerswald <auerswal <at> unix-ag.uni-kl.de>, 21349 <at> debbugs.gnu.org,
 積丹尼 Dan Jacobson <jidanni <at> jidanni.org>
Subject: Re: bug#21349: who shows no users nowadays on Debian
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2015 14:40:35 -0600

Sven Joachim wrote:
> Bob Proulx wrote:
> > AFAIK it doesn't have anything to do with Debian changing anything.
> 
> It most probably has, the latest xterm version (319) only writes a utmp
> entry if you start a login shell (i.e. use the -ls option).  That's
> supposed to be a bug fix[1].
> 1. https://bugs.debian.org/794201

Hmm...  I guess I haven't logged out since that xterm arrived.

  $ who | grep -c pts/
  61
  ... counting all of the entries up to pts/65...

And so it appears that it has been logging for me.  But if I
explicitly start a new xterm:

  $ xterm &

And then in that window look:

  $ tty
  /dev/pts/61

  $ who | grep -c pts/61
  0

So I stand corrected.  It appears that very recently it was changed to
not log utmp.  In spite of the bug log reporting the bug to have been
fixed this still seems to be active with an up to date Sid.  It
appears to have arrived Sunday with version 319-1.  Even explicitly
giving +ut doesn't do anything.  I will further take the discussion to
the Debian bug log since it doesn't have anything to do with
coreutils.

Bob

Message #26 received at 21349 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: "L. A. Walsh" <coreutils <at> tlinx.org>
To: 積丹尼 Dan Jacobson <jidanni <at> jidanni.org>
Cc: 21349 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#21349: who shows no users nowadays on Debian
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 2015 17:19:18 -0700

積丹尼 Dan Jacobson wrote:
> (info "(coreutils) who invocation") says
>
> If given no non-option arguments, ‘who’ prints the following
> information for each user currently logged on: login name, terminal
> line, login time, and remote hostname or X display.
>
> $ who
>   
The same thing happens on openSuSE -- I think it's because of the move to
systemd -- it doesn't maintain the wtmp/utmp stuf..

>  who                                                               
>  who am i
>  who -a
>  who -b
>  who -d
>  who -H
NAME     LINE         TIME         COMMENT
>  who -l
>  who -m
>  who -p
>  who -q
I> who -r
----
I don't have utmp, just a smallish wtmp:
So I tried a symlink:

sudo ln -s /var/log/wtmp /var/run/utmp

It's not quite the same, but some things work:

Ishtar:law> who am i
law      pts/1        Aug 26 16:37 (athenae)
Ishtar:law> who
law      pts/0        Aug 26 11:59 (athenae)
law      pts/1        Aug 26 16:37 (athenae)

who -b doesn't work, but uptime does:
Ishtar:law> who -b
Ishtar:law> uptime
17:16pm  up 61 days 12:36,  2 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.06, 0.11

So has debian been moving to systemd as well?

Message #29 received at 21349 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Erik Auerswald <auerswal <at> unix-ag.uni-kl.de>
To: Bob Proulx <bob <at> proulx.com>
Cc: 21349 <at> debbugs.gnu.org,
 積丹尼 Dan Jacobson <jidanni <at> jidanni.org>
Subject: Re: bug#21349: who shows no users nowadays on Debian
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 2015 09:40:21 +0200

Hi,

On Wed, Aug 26, 2015 at 02:13:37PM -0600, Bob Proulx wrote:
> Erik Auerswald wrote:
> > This works on a current Debian/testing system (stable as well), so it might
> > be a recent Debian/Sid (unstable) issue. Perhaps you want to open a bug
> > report there?
> 
> Updating utmp depends upon the terminal emulator.  XTerm updates it.

Logins via X used to update it as well (seldomly used nowadays). The local
desktop session usually updates utmp as well, at least with XFCE on
Debian/testing this is still the case. GNOME Terminal updates utmp as well.
Screen updates it, too. When I last looked at it, Konsole (from KDE) did
not update utmp.

> AFAIK it doesn't have anything to do with Debian changing anything.

Sven Joachim wrote:
> It most probably has, the latest xterm version (319) only writes a utmp
> entry if you start a login shell (i.e. use the -ls option)

Linda A. Walsh noticed a similar thing:
> The same thing happens on openSuSE

Of course this is most likely caused by changes outside of coreutils. On a
"desktop" system without any terminal windows, the desktop session should
be shown in the "who" output. On all systems I could easily check that is
the case. I do not have any SystemD/GNOME or KDE systems to test.

Thanks,
Erik

Message #32 received at 21349 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: 積丹尼 Dan Jacobson <jidanni <at> jidanni.org>
To: Erik Auerswald <auerswal <at> unix-ag.uni-kl.de>
Cc: 21349 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, Bob Proulx <bob <at> proulx.com>
Subject: Re: bug#21349: who shows no users nowadays on Debian
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 2015 22:46:34 +0800

All I know is I also filed
http://bugs.debian.org/796942 w shows no users even though I must...
http://bugs.debian.org/796943 wall can't write to anybody nowadays

All I know is all this stuff should be updated to still work with the
latest Unix/Linux. Otherwise after every few years one will need xwho and
ywho and zwho just to check who's around...

Message #35 received at 21349 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Pádraig Brady <P <at> draigBrady.com>
To: 積丹尼 Dan Jacobson <jidanni <at> jidanni.org>,
 Erik Auerswald <auerswal <at> unix-ag.uni-kl.de>
Cc: 21349 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, Bob Proulx <bob <at> proulx.com>
Subject: Re: bug#21349: who shows no users nowadays on Debian
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2015 11:08:48 +0000

On 27/08/15 15:46, 積丹尼 Dan Jacobson wrote:
> All I know is I also filed
> http://bugs.debian.org/796942 w shows no users even though I must...
> http://bugs.debian.org/796943 wall can't write to anybody nowadays
> 
> All I know is all this stuff should be updated to still work with the
> latest Unix/Linux. Otherwise after every few years one will need xwho and
> ywho and zwho just to check who's around...

A related issue with gnome-terminal on Fedora 23
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/1280724
where that doesn't update /var/run/utmp

cheers,
Pádraig

Message #38 received at 21349 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: "L. A. Walsh" <coreutils <at> tlinx.org>
To: Erik Auerswald <auerswal <at> unix-ag.uni-kl.de>
Cc: 21349 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, Bob Proulx <bob <at> proulx.com>,
 積丹尼 Dan Jacobson
 <jidanni <at> jidanni.org>
Subject: Re: bug#21349: who shows no users (looking in wrong place)
Date: Sun, 27 Dec 2015 13:35:12 -0800

Erik Auerswald wrote:
>
> Linda A. Walsh noticed a similar thing:
>   
>> The same thing happens on openSuSE
>>     
----

Looked into this a bit more and found that while
'w' and 'who' didn't work, "last" did.

Tracked it down to this...
from the linux programmer's manual UTMP(5)

it says conforming implementations should look in:
FILES
      /var/run/utmp
      /var/log/wtmp
--------------

tracing who (I assume 'w' uses similar code):
# strace who|& grep /var
access("/var/run/utmpx", F_OK)          = -1 ENOENT (No such file or 
directory)
open("/var/run/utmp", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or 
directory)
access("/var/run/utmpx", F_OK)          = -1 ENOENT (No such file or 
directory)
open("/var/run/utmp", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or 
directory)
----

I.e. it isn't checking the 2nd location.

Adding a link in the *ephemeral* (tmpfs/ramdisk) /var/run allows
it to temporarily work:

# ln -s ../log/wtmp utmp

>  who
law      pts/0        2015-11-29 09:49 (athenae)
root     tty1         2015-12-22 09:26
law      pts/1        2015-12-23 16:57 (athenae)
law      pts/0        2015-12-25 17:46 (athenae)
law      pts/2        2015-12-25 21:42 (athenae)
law      pts/4        2015-12-25 22:23 (athenae)
law      pts/5        2015-12-27 08:46 (athenae)
law      pts/6        2015-12-27 12:54 (athenae)
law      pts/7        2015-12-27 12:59 (athenae)
>  w
13:18:22 up 108 days, 21:03, 459 users,  load average: 1.33, 1.25, 0.99
USER     TTY      FROM             LOGIN@   IDLE   JCPU   PCPU WHAT
law      pts/0    athenae          29Nov15 39:52m  6:38   1.18s 
dovecot/imap [l
root     tty1                      Tue09    3days  0.28s  0.28s -bash
law      pts/1    athenae          Wed16    2days  0.30s  0.30s -bash
law      pts/0    athenae          Fri17   39:52m  6:38   1.11s -bash
law      pts/2    athenae          Fri21   37:18m  0.42s  0.42s -bash
law      pts/4    athenae          Fri22   38:52m  0.25s  0.25s -bash
law      pts/5    athenae          08:46    1:39m  0.57s  0.57s -bash
law      pts/6    athenae          12:54   12:44   0.37s  0.37s -bash
law      pts/7    athenae          12:59    0.00s  0.29s  0.01s w
>  last|grep 'still log'
law      pts/7        athenae          Sun Dec 27 12:59   still logged in  
law      pts/6        athenae          Sun Dec 27 12:54   still logged in  
law      pts/5        athenae          Sun Dec 27 08:46   still logged in  
law      pts/4        athenae          Fri Dec 25 22:23   still logged in  
law      pts/2        athenae          Fri Dec 25 21:42   still logged in  
law      pts/0        athenae          Fri Dec 25 17:46   still logged in  
law      pts/1        athenae          Wed Dec 23 16:57   still logged in  
root     tty1                          Tue Dec 22 09:26   still logged in

----------------------------------------------

While creating a symlink in /var/run/utmp => /var/log/wtmp
is a per-boot, workaround to get this to work until 'w/who' are fixed,
both of them should check the linux-standard locations documented
in the manpage.

Likely /var/log is a new location (as /var/run was made ephemeral
as part of the transition to systemd).  Note, there was some
pressure by the systemd folks to also make /var/log ephemeral
as well as /tmp and /var/tmp, but those were resisted, at least
in "SUSE"...(at least for now...), since the default for systemd
is to not store or save logfiles (or coredumps) over boots.

One can tell from design choices like that systemd is designed for
end-consumer systems, where logs that document things might
be inconvenient (vs. any publicly owned corporation, law group
bank or medical office where retaining logs for some period
of time is required by US law).

Message #41 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: "L. A. Walsh" <coreutils <at> tlinx.org>
To: bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#21349: who shows no users (looking in wrong place)
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 2015 15:21:18 -0800

L. A. Walsh wrote:
> Erik Auerswald wrote:
>>
>> Linda A. Walsh noticed a similar thing:
>>  
>>> The same thing happens on openSuSE
>>>     
> ----
>
> Looked into this a bit more and found that while
> 'w' and 'who' didn't work, "last" did.
>
> Tracked it down to this...
> from the linux programmer's manual UTMP(5)
>
> it says conforming implementations should look in:
> FILES
>       /var/run/utmp
>       /var/log/wtmp
> --------------
>
> tracing who (I assume 'w' uses similar code):
> # strace who|& grep /var
> access("/var/run/utmpx", F_OK)          = -1 ENOENT (No such file or 
> directory)
> open("/var/run/utmp", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or 
> directory)
> access("/var/run/utmpx", F_OK)          = -1 ENOENT (No such file or 
> directory)
> open("/var/run/utmp", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or 
> directory)
> ----
>
> I.e. it isn't checking the 2nd location.
>
> Adding a link in the *ephemeral* (tmpfs/ramdisk) /var/run allows
> it to temporarily work:
>
> # ln -s ../log/wtmp utmp
>
>>  who
> law      pts/0        2015-11-29 09:49 (athenae)
> root     tty1         2015-12-22 09:26
> law      pts/1        2015-12-23 16:57 (athenae)
> law      pts/0        2015-12-25 17:46 (athenae)
> law      pts/2        2015-12-25 21:42 (athenae)
> law      pts/4        2015-12-25 22:23 (athenae)
> law      pts/5        2015-12-27 08:46 (athenae)
> law      pts/6        2015-12-27 12:54 (athenae)
> law      pts/7        2015-12-27 12:59 (athenae)
>>  w
> 13:18:22 up 108 days, 21:03, 459 users,  load average: 1.33, 1.25, 0.99
> USER     TTY      FROM             LOGIN@   IDLE   JCPU   PCPU WHAT
> law      pts/0    athenae          29Nov15 39:52m  6:38   1.18s 
> dovecot/imap [l
> root     tty1                      Tue09    3days  0.28s  0.28s -bash
> law      pts/1    athenae          Wed16    2days  0.30s  0.30s -bash
> law      pts/0    athenae          Fri17   39:52m  6:38   1.11s -bash
> law      pts/2    athenae          Fri21   37:18m  0.42s  0.42s -bash
> law      pts/4    athenae          Fri22   38:52m  0.25s  0.25s -bash
> law      pts/5    athenae          08:46    1:39m  0.57s  0.57s -bash
> law      pts/6    athenae          12:54   12:44   0.37s  0.37s -bash
> law      pts/7    athenae          12:59    0.00s  0.29s  0.01s w
>>  last|grep 'still log'
> law      pts/7        athenae          Sun Dec 27 12:59   still logged 
> in  law      pts/6        athenae          Sun Dec 27 12:54   still 
> logged in  law      pts/5        athenae          Sun Dec 27 08:46   
> still logged in  law      pts/4        athenae          Fri Dec 25 
> 22:23   still logged in  law      pts/2        athenae          Fri 
> Dec 25 21:42   still logged in  law      pts/0        athenae          
> Fri Dec 25 17:46   still logged in  law      pts/1        
> athenae          Wed Dec 23 16:57   still logged in  root     
> tty1                          Tue Dec 22 09:26   still logged in
>
> ----------------------------------------------
>
> While creating a symlink in /var/run/utmp => /var/log/wtmp
> is a per-boot, workaround to get this to work until 'w/who' are fixed,
> both of them should check the linux-standard locations documented
> in the manpage.
>
> Likely /var/log is a new location (as /var/run was made ephemeral
> as part of the transition to systemd).  Note, there was some
> pressure by the systemd folks to also make /var/log ephemeral
> as well as /tmp and /var/tmp, but those were resisted, at least
> in "SUSE"...(at least for now...), since the default for systemd
> is to not store or save logfiles (or coredumps) over boots.
>
> One can tell from design choices like that systemd is designed for
> end-consumer systems, where logs that document things might
> be inconvenient (vs. any publicly owned corporation, law group
> bank or medical office where retaining logs for some period
> of time is required by US law).
>
>
>

Message #44 received at 21349 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Assaf Gordon <assafgordon <at> gmail.com>
To: 21349 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#21349: who shows no users nowadays on Debian
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2018 15:04:33 -0600

tags 21349 notabug
close 21349
stop

(triaging old bugs)

On 26/08/15 02:40 PM, Bob Proulx wrote:
> [...]
>  It appears that very recently it was changed to
> not log utmp. 
[...]
> I will further take the discussion to the Debian bug log since it
> doesn't have anything to do with coreutils.

With no further comments in 3 years,
I'm closing this as "not a bug" (at least not a coreutils bug).

-assaf

Message #51 received at 21349 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: 積丹尼 Dan Jacobson <jidanni <at> jidanni.org>
To: 21349 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#21349 acknowledged by developer (Re: bug#21349: who shows no
 users nowadays on Debian)
Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2018 07:45:16 +0800

(Today on Debian I see
$ who
jidanni  pts/0        2018-10-25 06:26 (:0)
So maybe this is fixed.)

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