Who is "logged in" when you are running multiple login windows?

[Andy S Poling]

In article <2507 at ttardis.UUCP> rlw at ttardis.UUCP (Ron Wilson) writes:
>In article <4518 at jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU>, andy at jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU (Andy S Poling) writes:
>>However (and this is a reasonably big however :-) since my manager also
>>logs people in, it routinely (every 2 secs) checks whether any closed
>>windows are improprly represented in utmp and changes the utmp entries for
>>those windows to reflect a logout.  I think this would make that troublesome
>>UA window "invisible" since utmp would show it as "logged out".
>
>What troublesome UA window?

The one that doesn't have anyone logged in on it.  IMHO, since a window looks
like a tty, if it is active someone should be logged in on it.

>> I consider
>>this proper behavior on the part of my software - to act otherwise would
>>throw security out the window.
>
>Your window manager sounds a "little" busy - I mean why do you need to constant-
>ly rework the utmp file?  When a window is allocated (by open("/dev/window",...)
>), update the utmp entry, and then the same when the window is deallocated (by
>the final close).

Because I run alot of processes (occasionally filling the process table), I
consider having getty (or an equivalent) hanging around waiting for someone
to logout a waste of a process slot.  Since the window driver is kind enough
to take care of closing the window for me, all I have to do is notice when
it does.


>any program that relies on utmp to be correct should be rewritten

I humbly await your new version of who(1) which doesn't use the utmp file.

-Andy