Subject: Re: utmp file format change
To: Simon Burge <simonb@wasabisystems.com>
From: James Graham <greywolf@starwolf.com>
List: tech-userlevel
Date: 08/22/2001 13:10:30
On Wed, 22 Aug 2001, Simon Burge wrote:
# Jun-ichiro itojun Hagino wrote:
#
# > I really would love to see utmp/wtmp file format to be updated before
# > 1.6, so that it would be able to accomodate full IPv6 numeric address
# > as well as longer host names.
# >
# > [ ... ]
# > - Solaris uses struct utmpx, instead of utmp. which does not look very
# > good to me.
# > - openbsd bumped UT_xx (file format changed), with no backward
# > compatibility supplied for older log files.
# > [ ... ]
# >
# > the approach I like the best is the openbsd one, with a bit of clever
# > backward compat code in last(1) and other tools. any comments?
#
# Binary compatibility is a problem. Every writer of utmp/wtmp would need
# to be updated at the same time (including any packages - ssh-type and
# xterm-type packages come to mind) other file corruption will be a real
# issue.
So why don't we have utmp/wtmp writing facilities in libc and use those
instead of writing directly?
--*greywolf;
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