Missing /var/log/wtmp

Cheryl Homiak

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Feb 4, 2004, 12:30:08 AM2/4/04

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am running debian unstable. I seem to be missing /var/log/wtmp
from my system. I have searched debian
and found no file by that name in the package contents searches. I
searched google; I did
find some correspondence on a cygwin list about it being missing. Their
solution was to insert something in one of the postinstall scripts. Is
there a more straightforward way of re-creating it on my system? I'm
getting daily reports about logrotate not being able to find it.
TIA.

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Cheryl

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Bryan Andersen

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Feb 4, 2004, 12:50:06 AM2/4/04

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Cheryl Homiak wrote:
> am running debian unstable. I seem to be missing /var/log/wtmp
> from my system. I have searched debian
> and found no file by that name in the package contents searches. I
> searched google; I did
> find some correspondence on a cygwin list about it being missing. Their
> solution was to insert something in one of the postinstall scripts. Is
> there a more straightforward way of re-creating it on my system? I'm
> getting daily reports about logrotate not being able to find it.
> TIA.

/var/log/wtmp is created if and only if system accounting is enabled.
It holds binary accounting data on what processes have been run and by
whoom plus a few other things.

- Bryan

Miquel van Smoorenburg

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Feb 4, 2004, 9:50:20 AM2/4/04

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In article <Pine.LNX.4.58.04...@maranatha.charter.net>,

Cheryl Homiak <cho...@charter.net> wrote:
> am running debian unstable. I seem to be missing /var/log/wtmp
>from my system. I have searched debian
>and found no file by that name in the package contents searches. I
>searched google; I did
>find some correspondence on a cygwin list about it being missing. Their
>solution was to insert something in one of the postinstall scripts. Is
>there a more straightforward way of re-creating it on my system? I'm
>getting daily reports about logrotate not being able to find it.
>TIA.

# touch /var/log/wtmp

Mike.

Cheryl Homiak

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Feb 4, 2004, 11:10:10 AM2/4/04

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Ok, I recompiled my kernel with bsd process accounting compiled in. But I
still must be missing a step, because I still get:

/etc/cron.daily/logrotate:
stat of /var/log/wtmp failed: No such file or directory
run-parts: /etc/cron.daily/logrotate exited with return code 1

Mike Kuhar

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Feb 4, 2004, 12:00:18 PM2/4/04

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Cheryl Homiak [mailto:cho...@charter.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2004 10:54 AM
> To: debia...@lists.debian.org
> Subject: Re: Missing /var/log/wtmp
>
>
> Ok, I recompiled my kernel with bsd process accounting
> compiled in. But I
> still must be missing a step, because I still get:
>
>
> /etc/cron.daily/logrotate:
> stat of /var/log/wtmp failed: No such file or directory
> run-parts: /etc/cron.daily/logrotate exited with return code 1
>
> --
> Cheryl

As stated earlier, you create the wtmp file, as root, with:

touch /var/log/wtmp

This will create the wtmp file. Be sure to check to insure it was created.

-mk

Cheryl Homiak

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Feb 4, 2004, 1:30:39 PM2/4/04

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Yes, using touch seems to work. Would have done that sooner but since what
i saw when searching google didn't suggest this simple solution, I thought
there must be a problem with it.
Thanks.

--
Cheryl