[gentoo-user] # users gives strange results

[gentoo-user] # users gives strange results

[Matthias Langer]

Recently i've got a power failure while one of my gentoo boxes was up
and running. Since then, the users command seems not to work correctly
anymore, as it claims for users to be logged in that almost certainly
aren't and don't have a single process running. Besides of this issue,
everthing seems to work as expected. Can anybody here tell me where to
look for the source of this problem ?

Thanks, Matthias

-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] # users gives strange results

[Matthias Langer]

On Mon, 2006-03-20 at 04:51 +0100, Matthias Langer wrote:
> Recently i've got a power failure while one of my gentoo boxes was up
> and running. Since then, the users command seems not to work correctly
> anymore, as it claims for users to be logged in that almost certainly
> aren't and don't have a single process running. Besides of this issue,
> everthing seems to work as expected. Can anybody here tell me where to
> look for the source of this problem ?
> 
Just for the case that this helps describing my problem:

# users
mlangc mlangc

[should be: rattan]

# top
not a single process for mlangc

# tail -n 400 /var/log/messages

Mar 19 22:21:37 lgate886 login(pam_unix)[8674]: session opened for user
mlangc by (uid=0)
...
...
Mar 19 22:21:47 lgate886 (mlangc-8784): starting (version 2.12.1), pid
8784 user 'mlangc'
...
...
Mar 20 00:02:45 lgate886 (mlangc-8784): Exiting
Mar 20 00:02:50 lgate886 login(pam_unix)[8674]: session closed for user
mlangc
Mar 20 04:29:35 lgate886 sshd[9620]: Accepted keyboard-interactive/pam
for rattan from 192.168.0.102 port 41237 ssh2
Mar 20 04:29:35 lgate886 syslog-ng[5304]: STATS: dropped 0
Mar 20 04:29:35 lgate886 sshd(pam_unix)[9626]: session opened for user
rattan by (uid=0)
Mar 20 04:30:29 lgate886 su[9634]: Successful su for root by rattan
Mar 20 04:30:29 lgate886 su[9634]: + pts/0 rattan:root
Mar 20 04:30:29 lgate886 su(pam_unix)[9634]: session opened for user
root by (uid=1002)


-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] # users gives strange results

[Rick van Hattem]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1996 bytes --]

On Monday 20 March 2006 05:02, Matthias Langer wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-03-20 at 04:51 +0100, Matthias Langer wrote:
> > Recently i've got a power failure while one of my gentoo boxes was up
> > and running. Since then, the users command seems not to work correctly
> > anymore, as it claims for users to be logged in that almost certainly
> > aren't and don't have a single process running. Besides of this issue,
> > everthing seems to work as expected. Can anybody here tell me where to
> > look for the source of this problem ?
>
> Just for the case that this helps describing my problem:
>
> # users
> mlangc mlangc
>
> [should be: rattan]
>
> # top
> not a single process for mlangc
>
> # tail -n 400 /var/log/messages
>
> Mar 19 22:21:37 lgate886 login(pam_unix)[8674]: session opened for user
> mlangc by (uid=0)
> ...
> ...
> Mar 19 22:21:47 lgate886 (mlangc-8784): starting (version 2.12.1), pid
> 8784 user 'mlangc'
> ...
> ...
> Mar 20 00:02:45 lgate886 (mlangc-8784): Exiting
> Mar 20 00:02:50 lgate886 login(pam_unix)[8674]: session closed for user
> mlangc
> Mar 20 04:29:35 lgate886 sshd[9620]: Accepted keyboard-interactive/pam
> for rattan from 192.168.0.102 port 41237 ssh2
> Mar 20 04:29:35 lgate886 syslog-ng[5304]: STATS: dropped 0
> Mar 20 04:29:35 lgate886 sshd(pam_unix)[9626]: session opened for user
> rattan by (uid=0)
> Mar 20 04:30:29 lgate886 su[9634]: Successful su for root by rattan
> Mar 20 04:30:29 lgate886 su[9634]: + pts/0 rattan:root
> Mar 20 04:30:29 lgate886 su(pam_unix)[9634]: session opened for user
> root by (uid=1002)
Perhaps you could try booting in single user mode (or a livecd or something 
like that) and remove /var/log/utmp and /var/log/wtmp
Those are the files that track who is logged on and who isn't, perhaps you can 
also delete/rename those while running but I'm not sure what results you'll 
get and I'm not gonna try on one of my boxes :P

-- 
Rick van Hattem	Rick.van.Hattem(at)Fawo.nl

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 200 bytes --]

Re: [gentoo-user] # users gives strange results

[Willie Wong]

On Mon, Mar 20, 2006 at 04:51:31AM +0100, Matthias Langer wrote:
> Recently i've got a power failure while one of my gentoo boxes was up
> and running. Since then, the users command seems not to work correctly
> anymore, as it claims for users to be logged in that almost certainly
> aren't and don't have a single process running. Besides of this issue,
> everthing seems to work as expected. Can anybody here tell me where to
> look for the source of this problem ?
> 
> Thanks, Matthias
> 

I am running into a similar problem recently. I found out that sometimes, after
updating 'system', init would restart. During an recent upgrade, after init 
restarts, the users that were logged-in at that time become "ghosts" of some sort. 
'w' would show the correct number of people logged in, but some other commands 
won't. It might have something to do with the fact that wtmp is not registering the 
logouts from thost users. If I issue 'last | head' i would see something to that 
effect. 

I am wondering perhaps removing /var/log/wtmp would solve the issue (you might also
want to touch /var/log/wtmp afterwards). It might require a rebooting (which I haven't
gotten around to doing).

Best, 

W
-- 
Willie W. Wong
wwong@math.princeton.edu
brought to you by the Roman letter i, the Hebrew letter \aleph, the Greek
letter \pi, and the non-letter \hbar
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] # users gives strange results

[Matthias Langer]

On Mon, 2006-03-20 at 18:51 -0500, Willie Wong wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 20, 2006 at 04:51:31AM +0100, Matthias Langer wrote:
> > Recently i've got a power failure while one of my gentoo boxes was up
> > and running. Since then, the users command seems not to work correctly
> > anymore, as it claims for users to be logged in that almost certainly
> > aren't and don't have a single process running. Besides of this issue,
> > everthing seems to work as expected. Can anybody here tell me where to
> > look for the source of this problem ?
> > 
> > Thanks, Matthias
> > 
> 
> I am running into a similar problem recently. I found out that sometimes, after
> updating 'system', init would restart. During an recent upgrade, after init 
> restarts, the users that were logged-in at that time become "ghosts" of some sort. 
> 'w' would show the correct number of people logged in, but some other commands 
> won't. It might have something to do with the fact that wtmp is not registering the 
> logouts from thost users. If I issue 'last | head' i would see something to that 
> effect. 
> 
> I am wondering perhaps removing /var/log/wtmp would solve the issue (you might also
> want to touch /var/log/wtmp afterwards). It might require a rebooting (which I haven't
> gotten around to doing).

Well, i tried that after booting into x86-2006.0-minimal. Unfortunatley,
that didn't solve my issuses; I found out that my system behaves after
the following pattern:

login with user1:
$ users
user1
$ exit

login with user2:
$users
user1 user2
$exit

login with user3:
$users
user2 user3

Thus, the system seems to ignore logouts as long as there are not more
then two additional logins.	

I've also did a reiserfschk while staying in the live-cd environment,
but no corruptions where found ...

-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] # users gives strange results

[Matthias Langer]

On Mon, 2006-03-20 at 10:32 +0100, Rick van Hattem wrote:
> On Monday 20 March 2006 05:02, Matthias Langer wrote:
> > On Mon, 2006-03-20 at 04:51 +0100, Matthias Langer wrote:
> > > Recently i've got a power failure while one of my gentoo boxes was up
> > > and running. Since then, the users command seems not to work correctly
> > > anymore, as it claims for users to be logged in that almost certainly
> > > aren't and don't have a single process running. Besides of this issue,
> > > everthing seems to work as expected. Can anybody here tell me where to
> > > look for the source of this problem ?
> >
> > Just for the case that this helps describing my problem:
> >
> > # users
> > mlangc mlangc
> >
> > [should be: rattan]
> >
> > # top
> > not a single process for mlangc
> >
> > # tail -n 400 /var/log/messages
> >
> > Mar 19 22:21:37 lgate886 login(pam_unix)[8674]: session opened for user
> > mlangc by (uid=0)
> > ...
> > ...
> > Mar 19 22:21:47 lgate886 (mlangc-8784): starting (version 2.12.1), pid
> > 8784 user 'mlangc'
> > ...
> > ...
> > Mar 20 00:02:45 lgate886 (mlangc-8784): Exiting
> > Mar 20 00:02:50 lgate886 login(pam_unix)[8674]: session closed for user
> > mlangc
> > Mar 20 04:29:35 lgate886 sshd[9620]: Accepted keyboard-interactive/pam
> > for rattan from 192.168.0.102 port 41237 ssh2
> > Mar 20 04:29:35 lgate886 syslog-ng[5304]: STATS: dropped 0
> > Mar 20 04:29:35 lgate886 sshd(pam_unix)[9626]: session opened for user
> > rattan by (uid=0)
> > Mar 20 04:30:29 lgate886 su[9634]: Successful su for root by rattan
> > Mar 20 04:30:29 lgate886 su[9634]: + pts/0 rattan:root
> > Mar 20 04:30:29 lgate886 su(pam_unix)[9634]: session opened for user
> > root by (uid=1002)
> Perhaps you could try booting in single user mode (or a livecd or something 
> like that) and remove /var/log/utmp and /var/log/wtmp
> Those are the files that track who is logged on and who isn't, perhaps you can 
> also delete/rename those while running but I'm not sure what results you'll 
> get and I'm not gonna try on one of my boxes :P

Thanks, i tried to remove /var/log/wtmp [/var/log/utmp doesn't exist on
my box], but that did not help (see my other reply). 

-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] # users gives strange results

[Matthias Langer]

On Tue, 2006-03-21 at 02:46 +0100, Matthias Langer wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-03-20 at 10:32 +0100, Rick van Hattem wrote:
> > On Monday 20 March 2006 05:02, Matthias Langer wrote:
> > > On Mon, 2006-03-20 at 04:51 +0100, Matthias Langer wrote:
> > > > Recently i've got a power failure while one of my gentoo boxes was up
> > > > and running. Since then, the users command seems not to work correctly
> > > > anymore, as it claims for users to be logged in that almost certainly
> > > > aren't and don't have a single process running. Besides of this issue,
> > > > everthing seems to work as expected. Can anybody here tell me where to
> > > > look for the source of this problem ?
> > >
> > > Just for the case that this helps describing my problem:
> > >
> > > # users
> > > mlangc mlangc
> > >
> > > [should be: rattan]
> > >
> > > # top
> > > not a single process for mlangc
> > >
> > > # tail -n 400 /var/log/messages
> > >
> > > Mar 19 22:21:37 lgate886 login(pam_unix)[8674]: session opened for user
> > > mlangc by (uid=0)
> > > ...
> > > ...
> > > Mar 19 22:21:47 lgate886 (mlangc-8784): starting (version 2.12.1), pid
> > > 8784 user 'mlangc'
> > > ...
> > > ...
> > > Mar 20 00:02:45 lgate886 (mlangc-8784): Exiting
> > > Mar 20 00:02:50 lgate886 login(pam_unix)[8674]: session closed for user
> > > mlangc
> > > Mar 20 04:29:35 lgate886 sshd[9620]: Accepted keyboard-interactive/pam
> > > for rattan from 192.168.0.102 port 41237 ssh2
> > > Mar 20 04:29:35 lgate886 syslog-ng[5304]: STATS: dropped 0
> > > Mar 20 04:29:35 lgate886 sshd(pam_unix)[9626]: session opened for user
> > > rattan by (uid=0)
> > > Mar 20 04:30:29 lgate886 su[9634]: Successful su for root by rattan
> > > Mar 20 04:30:29 lgate886 su[9634]: + pts/0 rattan:root
> > > Mar 20 04:30:29 lgate886 su(pam_unix)[9634]: session opened for user
> > > root by (uid=1002)
> > Perhaps you could try booting in single user mode (or a livecd or something 
> > like that) and remove /var/log/utmp and /var/log/wtmp
> > Those are the files that track who is logged on and who isn't, perhaps you can 
> > also delete/rename those while running but I'm not sure what results you'll 
> > get and I'm not gonna try on one of my boxes :P
> 
> Thanks, i tried to remove /var/log/wtmp [/var/log/utmp doesn't exist on
> my box], but that did not help (see my other reply). 
> 
Hmm, well, by
$ strace users
i found out that i have in fact the file /var/run/utmp; But removing
this file did not solve my problem either ...

-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] # users gives strange results

[Matthias Langer]

On Tue, 2006-03-21 at 02:40 +0100, Matthias Langer wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-03-20 at 18:51 -0500, Willie Wong wrote:
> > On Mon, Mar 20, 2006 at 04:51:31AM +0100, Matthias Langer wrote:
> > > Recently i've got a power failure while one of my gentoo boxes was up
> > > and running. Since then, the users command seems not to work correctly
> > > anymore, as it claims for users to be logged in that almost certainly
> > > aren't and don't have a single process running. Besides of this issue,
> > > everthing seems to work as expected. Can anybody here tell me where to
> > > look for the source of this problem ?
> > > 
> > > Thanks, Matthias
> > > 
> > 
> > I am running into a similar problem recently. I found out that sometimes, after
> > updating 'system', init would restart. During an recent upgrade, after init 
> > restarts, the users that were logged-in at that time become "ghosts" of some sort. 
> > 'w' would show the correct number of people logged in, but some other commands 
> > won't. It might have something to do with the fact that wtmp is not registering the 
> > logouts from thost users. If I issue 'last | head' i would see something to that 
> > effect. 
> > 
> > I am wondering perhaps removing /var/log/wtmp would solve the issue (you might also
> > want to touch /var/log/wtmp afterwards). It might require a rebooting (which I haven't
> > gotten around to doing).
> 
> Well, i tried that after booting into x86-2006.0-minimal. Unfortunatley,
> that didn't solve my issuses; I found out that my system behaves after
> the following pattern:
> 
> login with user1:
> $ users
> user1
> $ exit
> 
> login with user2:
> $users
> user1 user2
> $exit
> 
> login with user3:
> $users
> user2 user3
> 
> Thus, the system seems to ignore logouts as long as there are not more
> then two additional logins.	
> 
> I've also did a reiserfschk while staying in the live-cd environment,
> but no corruptions where found ...
> 
By the way, the output of 
$ w
seems correct ...

-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] # users gives strange results [SOLVED]

[Matthias Langer]

On Tue, 2006-03-21 at 13:11 +0100, Matthias Langer wrote:
> On Tue, 2006-03-21 at 02:40 +0100, Matthias Langer wrote:
> > On Mon, 2006-03-20 at 18:51 -0500, Willie Wong wrote:
> > > On Mon, Mar 20, 2006 at 04:51:31AM +0100, Matthias Langer wrote:
> > > > Recently i've got a power failure while one of my gentoo boxes was up
> > > > and running. Since then, the users command seems not to work correctly
> > > > anymore, as it claims for users to be logged in that almost certainly
> > > > aren't and don't have a single process running. Besides of this issue,
> > > > everthing seems to work as expected. Can anybody here tell me where to
> > > > look for the source of this problem ?
> > > > 

Ok, I finally solved my problem by updating to
sys-apps/coreutils-5.94-r1 ...

-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list