Bug 679096

Summary:	systemd: utmp not created
Product:	[openSUSE] openSUSE 11.4	Reporter:	Jan Engelhardt <jengelh>
Component:	Basesystem	Assignee:	Kay Sievers <kasievers>
Status:	VERIFIED DUPLICATE	QA Contact:	E-mail List <qa-bugs>
Severity:	Minor
Priority:	P5 - None
Version:	Final
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Found By:	Beta-Customer	Services Priority:
Business Priority:		Blocker:	---
Marketing QA Status:	---	IT Deployment:	---

Description Jan Engelhardt 2011-03-12 07:40:14 UTC

Because systemd makes /var/run a tmpfs, it starts out with no files. But when /var/run/utmp does not exist, no info about currently logged in users will be recorded, which renders tools like w(1) ineffective.

Comment 1 Kay Sievers 2011-03-14 13:18:20 UTC

utmp is created after mounting /var/run/ by:
  grep /.tmp /etc/tmpfiles.d/*
  /etc/tmpfiles.d/systemd.conf:F /var/run/utmp 0664 root utmp -
  /etc/tmpfiles.d/systemd.conf:f /var/log/wtmp 0664 root utmp -
  /etc/tmpfiles.d/systemd.conf:f /var/log/btmp 0600 root utmp -

  $ ls -l /var/run/utmp 
  -rw-rw-r-- 1 root utmp 4608 Mar 14 14:08 /var/run/utmp

Try running:
  $ systemd-tmpfiles --create
it should create it and, the call to that binary should be in the
systemd default setup:
  [    3.897529] systemd[1]: var-run.mount changed mounting -> mounted
  ...
  [    4.708725] systemd[1]: About to execute: \
    /bin/systemd-tmpfiles --create --remove

Comment 2 Jan Engelhardt 2011-03-14 23:53:11 UTC

It seems this is a result of the crash (bug #676786) - normally, /var/run shows 28 entries for me, though there are much less in it (IIRC less than half that) when the crash occured.

(I think it may be reproduced by intentionally crashing systemd after getty has been started to provide a login prompt.)

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 676786 ***