Bug 232365 – x11-libs/vte-0.16.13 does not add user to utmp due to wrong permission settings

• Status: RESOLVED UPSTREAM
• Product: Gentoo Linux

[Description Paul de Vries 2008-07-19 17:59:06 UTC]

When a new terminal, that is using x11-libs/vte such as x11-terms/gnome-terminal, is opened the user name can not be added to /var/run/utmp. x11-libs/vte expects the utmp file to be group writable however gentoo baselayout-2 sets the utmp file to root writable only:

$ ll /var/run/utmp
-rw-r--r-- 1 root utmp 3840 Jul 19 09:25 /var/run/utmp



Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. run who
2. open gnome-terminal
3. run who

Actual Results:  
who returns same results in step 3 as in step 1

Expected Results:  
who should return the user that opened the terminal in addition to the users listed in step 1.

see also gentoo forum: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-699980-highlight-.html

[Comment 1 Daniel Gryniewicz (RETIRED) 2008-07-20 16:15:18 UTC]

Base-system: can you comment?  Should it be group writable?  If not, how should vte be getting write access?

[Comment 2 SpanKY 2008-08-20 07:18:26 UTC]

afaik, it should not be group writable.  that is what the utempter library is for.

read /usr/share/doc/libutempter-1.1.5/README

[Comment 3 Daniel Gryniewicz (RETIRED) 2008-08-20 13:31:22 UTC]

Okay, thanks.

Paul: Can you open an upstream bug for this, and link it in the URL field?  This is clearly, IMO, an upstream issue.

[Comment 4 Paul de Vries 2008-08-20 17:04:01 UTC]

I just looked in upstream bugzilla, this bug is apparently still open since 2005: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=149534

[Comment 5 Daniel Gryniewicz (RETIRED) 2008-08-21 16:11:39 UTC]

Sweet.  Neither of the solutions in that bug are very good.

[Comment 6 Gilles Dartiguelongue (RETIRED) 2010-01-19 13:46:00 UTC]

Closing upstream since there is nothing smart we can do here alone.