who: /dev/null/utmp: Not a directory

who: /dev/null/utmp: Not a directory

[John Mudd]

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I got the error when trying to run "who" from musl compiled coreutils
package. I assume there's a good reason but I have to ask...

Why not set _PATH_UTMP to /var/run/utmp instead? Or set it at build time
based on actual utmp location?

./include/paths.h:#define _PATH_UTMP    "/dev/null/utmp"
./include/utmp.h:#define _PATH_UTMP "/dev/null/utmp"

John

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Re: who: /dev/null/utmp: Not a directory

[Rich Felker]

On Sat, Mar 28, 2015 at 05:26:06PM -0400, John Mudd wrote:
> I got the error when trying to run "who" from musl compiled coreutils
> package. I assume there's a good reason but I have to ask...
> 
> Why not set _PATH_UTMP to /var/run/utmp instead? Or set it at build time
> based on actual utmp location?
> 
> ../include/paths.h:#define _PATH_UTMP    "/dev/null/utmp"
> ../include/utmp.h:#define _PATH_UTMP "/dev/null/utmp"

The intent was/is to avoid the creation of a utmp file since musl does
not use or support it. However the error you're reporting has been a
recurring topic so perhaps we should do something different. I'm not
sure what. From the app side, --disable-utmp might be useful if it's
available, since trying to use utmp is not going to do anything
meaningful.

Rich

Re: who: /dev/null/utmp: Not a directory

[John Mudd]

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> The intent was/is to avoid the creation of a utmp file since musl does not
use or support it.

That's okay. I'll just rename the "who" executable and use the rest. I
built coreutils mostly for the "sort" program. I can use the standard "who".

How about change "/dev/null/utmp" to
""/dev/null/musl_does_not_support_utmp". Same for wtmp. And add a comment
where the file is specified in the headers?


On Sat, Mar 28, 2015 at 5:26 PM, John Mudd <johnbmudd@gmail.com> wrote:

> I got the error when trying to run "who" from musl compiled coreutils
> package. I assume there's a good reason but I have to ask...
>
> Why not set _PATH_UTMP to /var/run/utmp instead? Or set it at build time
> based on actual utmp location?
>
> ./include/paths.h:#define _PATH_UTMP    "/dev/null/utmp"
> ./include/utmp.h:#define _PATH_UTMP "/dev/null/utmp"
>
> John
>

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