Subject: bug#73928: Bug#1080330: coreutils: who no longer works

From: Vincent Lefevre <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2025 19:05:13 +0100

On 2025-02-16 18:55:54 +0100, Chris Hofstaedtler wrote:
> Control: retitle -1 coreutils: "who" needs to ask seat manager
> 
> On Fri, Sep 20, 2024 at 05:24:11PM +0200, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> > Control: retitle -1 coreutils: "who" should support wtmpdb (y2038)
> 
> This is mistaken. wtmpdb is a history database. who(1) wants current
> sessions, and they are being tracked by logind.

It had been said that wtmpdb was meant to replace utmp, but perhaps
this was wrong.

> w(1) has a working implementation.

No, w(1) is broken (at least in sid). See the difference between
"who" and "w" with systemd 256.7-1, i.e. before the upgrade of
systemd that removed utmp support:

qaa:~> who
vinc17   tty7         2025-02-12 20:22 (:0)
vinc17   pts/0        2025-02-12 20:22 (:0)
vinc17   pts/3        2025-02-12 20:22 (:0)
vinc17   pts/2        2025-02-12 20:22 (:0)
vinc17   pts/1        2025-02-12 20:22 (:0)
vinc17   pts/5        2025-02-13 19:59 (155.133.131.76)
vinc17   pts/6        2025-02-14 03:44 (:0)
vinc17   pts/4        2025-02-12 20:22 (:0)
vinc17   pts/7        2025-02-12 20:22 (:0)
vinc17   pts/8        2025-02-12 20:22 (:0)
vinc17   pts/10       2025-02-12 20:35 (:0)
vinc17   pts/11       2025-02-12 20:35 (:0)
vinc17   pts/12       2025-02-13 01:40 (:0)
vinc17   pts/13       2025-02-13 02:31 (:0)
vinc17   pts/14       2025-02-16 18:57 (:pts/9:S.0)
vinc17   pts/15       2025-02-16 18:59 (:0)
vinc17   pts/16       2025-02-16 18:57 (:pts/9:S.1)
vinc17   pts/17       2025-02-15 02:10 (:0)

qaa:~> w
 19:00:52 up 3 days, 22:39,  3 users,  load average: 0.58, 0.76, 0.77
USER     TTY      FROM             LOGIN@   IDLE   JCPU   PCPU WHAT
vinc17            155.133.131.76   Thu19   23:10m  0.00s  0.02s sshd-session: vinc17 [priv]
vinc17            -                Wed20   23:10m  0.00s  0.01s lightdm --session-child 15 22
vinc17            -                Wed20   23:10m  0.00s  0.20s /usr/lib/systemd/systemd --user

-- 
Vincent Lefèvre <[email-masked]> - Web: <https://www.vinc17.net/>
100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <https://www.vinc17.net/blog/>
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Pascaline project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)