Gentoo Archives: gentoo-user

From: Alex Schuster <wonko@×××××××××.org>
To: Gentoo User <gentoo-user@l.g.o>
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] what is /var/log/wtmp ?
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2011 13:50:37
Message-Id: 201103251448.30968.wonko@wonkology.org
In Reply to: [gentoo-user] what is /var/log/wtmp ? by Philip Webb
1 Philip Webb writes:
2
3 > In /var/log/ there is a file wtmp , which is 24 MB & owned by utmp
4 > . It is in binary format & is updated when I reboot.
5
6 > Can anyone explain what it's for & whether it cb safely deleted ?
7
8 It tracks logins, you can use the 'last' command to show its contents. I'm
9 pretty sure it's safe to delete it, but you should create it as empty file
10 afterwards (touch /var/log/wtmp), otherwise the system will not make use of
11 it again.
12 If wou want to get the space, I suggest compressing the file, it will be
13 much much smaller then:
14
15 bzip2 -v /var/log/wtmp
16 touch /var/log/wtmp
17
18 Also see the man pages for wtmp and last.
19
20 Wonko

Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-user] what is /var/log/wtmp ? Philip Webb <purslow@××××××××.net>