User login |
login (3)
LOGIN(3) Linux Programmer's Manual LOGIN(3)
NAME
login, logout - write utmp and wtmp entries
SYNOPSIS
#include <utmp.h>
void login(const struct utmp *ut);
int logout(const char *ut_line);
Link with -lutil.
DESCRIPTION
The utmp file records who is currently using the system. The wtmp file
records all logins and logouts. See utmp(5).
The function login() takes the supplied struct utmp, ut, and writes it
to both utmp and wtmp file.
The function logout() clears the entry in the utmp file again.
GNU Details
More precisely, login() takes the argument ut struct, fills the field
ut->ut_type (if there is such a field) with the value USER_PROCESS, and
fills the field ut->ut_pid (if there is such a field) with the process
ID of the calling process. Then it tries to fill the field
ut->ut_line. It takes the first of stdin, stdout, stderr that is a
tty, and stores the corresponding pathname minus a possible leading
/dev/ into this field, and then writes the struct to the utmp file. On
the other hand, if no tty name was found, this field is filled with
"???" and the struct is not written to the utmp file. After this, the
struct is written to the wtmp file.
The logout() function searches the utmp file for an entry matching the
ut_line argument. If a record is found, it is updated by zeroing out
the ut_name and ut_host fields, updating the ut_tv timestamp field and
setting ut_type (if there is such a field) to DEAD_PROCESS.
RETURN VALUE
The logout() function returns 1 if the entry was successfully written
to the database, or 0 if an error occurred.
FILES
/var/run/utmp
user accounting database, configured through _PATH_UTMP in
<paths.h>
/var/log/wtmp
user accounting log file, configured through _PATH_WTMP in
<paths.h>
CONFORMING TO
Not in POSIX.1-2001. Present on the BSDs.
NOTES
Note that the member ut_user of struct utmp is called ut_name in BSD.
Therefore, ut_name is defined as an alias for ut_user in <utmp.h>.
SEE ALSO
getutent(3), utmp(5)
GNU 2004-05-06 LOGIN(3)
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