sessreg
manage utmp/wtmp entries for non-init clients
Synopsis
sessreg
[-w wtmp-file] [-u utmp-file] [-L
lastlog-file] [-l line-name] [-h
host-name] [-s slot-number] [-x
Xservers-file] [-t ttys-file] [-a] [-d]
user-name
add an example, a script, a trick and tips
examples
no example yet ...
... Feel free to add your own example above to help other Linux-lovers !
description
Sessreg
is a simple program for managing utmp/wtmp and lastlog
entries for xdm sessions.
System V has a
better interface to utmp than BSD; it dynamically allocates
entries in the file, instead of writing them at fixed
positions indexed by position in /etc/ttys.
To manage
BSD-style utmp files, sessreg has two strategies. In
conjunction with xdm, the -x option counts the number of
lines in /etc/ttys and then adds to that the number
of the line in the Xservers file which specifies the
display. The display name must be specified as the
"line-name" using the -l option. This sum is used
as the "slot-number" in the utmp file that this
entry will be written at. In the more general case, the -s
option specifies the slot-number directly. If for some
strange reason your system uses a file other than
/etc/ttys to manage init, the -t option can direct
sessreg to look elsewhere for a count of terminal
sessions.
Conversely,
System V managers will not ever need to use these options
(-x, -s and -t). To make the program easier to document and
explain, sessreg accepts the BSD-specific flags in
the System V environment and ignores them.
BSD and Linux
also have a host-name field in the utmp file which
doesn’t exist in System V. This option is also ignored
by the System V version of sessreg.
options
-w
wtmp-file
This specifies an alternate
wtmp file, instead of /var/log/wtmp. The special name
"none" disables writing records to the wtmp
file.
-u utmp-file
This specifies an alternate
utmp file, instead of /var/run/utmp. The special name
"none" disables writing records to the utmp
file.
-L
lastlog-file
This specifies an alternate
lastlog file, instead of /var/log/lastlog, if the
platform supports lastlog files. The special name
"none" disables writing records to the lastlog
file.
-l line-name
This describes the
"line" name of the entry. For terminal sessions,
this is the final pathname segment of the terminal device
filename (e.g. ttyd0). For X sessions, it should probably be
the local display name given to the users session (e.g. :0).
If none is specified, the terminal name will be determined
with ttyname(3) and stripped of leading components.
-h host-name
This is set for BSD hosts to
indicate that the session was initiated from a remote host.
In typical xdm usage, this options is not used.
-s
slot-number
Each potential session has a
unique slot number in BSD systems, most are identified by
the position of the line-name in the
/etc/ttysfile. This option overrides the default
position determined with ttyslot(3). This option is
inappropriate for use with xdm, the -x option is more
useful.
-x
Xservers-file
As X sessions are
one-per-display, and each display is entered in this file,
this options sets the slot-number to be the number of
lines in the ttys-file plus the index into this file
that the line-name is found.
-t ttys-file
This specifies an alternate
file which the -x option will use to count the number
of terminal sessions on a host.
-a
This session should be added to utmp/wtmp.
-d
This session should be deleted from utmp/wtmp. One of
-a/-d must be specified.
usage
In Xstartup, place a call like:
sessreg -a -l $DISPLAY -x /etc/X11/xdm/Xservers $USER
and in Xreset:
sessreg -d -l $DISPLAY -x /etc/X11/xdm/Xservers $USER
see also
xdm,
utmpx
author
Keith Packard,
MIT X Consortium