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sessreg - manage utmp/wtmp entries for non-init
clients
sessreg [-w wtmp-file] [-u utmp-file] [-l line-name] [-h host-name]
[-s slot-number] [-x Xservers-file] [-t ttys-file] [-a] [-d] user-name
Sessreg
is a simple program for managing utmp/wtmp entries for xdm sessions.
System
V has a better interface to /etc/utmp than BSD; it dynamically allocates
entries in the file, instead of writing them at fixed positions indexed
by position in /etc/ttys.
To manage BSD-style utmp files, sessreg has two
strategies. In conjunction with xdm, the -x option counts the number of
lines in /etc/ttys and then adds to that the number of the line in the
Xservers file which specifies the display. The display name must be specified
as the "line-name" using the -l option. This sum is used as the "slot-number"
in /etc/utmp that this entry will be written at. In the more general case,
the -s option specifies the slot-number directly. If for some strange reason
your system uses a file other that /etc/ttys to manage init, the -t option
can direct sessreg to look elsewhere for a count of terminal sessions.
Conversely,
System V managers will not ever need to use these options (-x, -s and -t).
To make the program easier to document and explain, sessreg accepts the
BSD-specific flags in the System V environment and ignores them.
BSD and
Linux also have a host-name field in the utmp file which doesn't exist in
System V. This option is also ignored by the System V version of sessreg.
In Xstartup, place a call like:
sessreg -a -l $DISPLAY -x /usr/X11R6/lib/xdm/Xservers $USER
and in Xreset:
sessreg -d -l $DISPLAY -x /usr/X11R6/lib/xdm/Xservers $USER
- -w wtmp-file
- This specifies an alternate wtmp file, instead of /usr/adm/wtmp
for BSD or /etc/wtmp for sysV. The special name "none" disables writing
records to /usr/adm/wtmp.
- -u utmp-file
- This specifies an alternate utmp file,
instead of "/etc/utmp". The special name "none" disables writing records
to /etc/utmp.
- -l line-name
- This describes the "line" name of the entry. For
terminal sessions, this is the final pathname segment of the terminal device
filename (e.g. ttyd0). For X sessions, it should probably be the local display
name given to the users session (e.g. :0). If none is specified, the terminal
name will be determined with ttyname(3)
and stripped of leading components.
- -h host-name
- This is set for BSD hosts to indicate that the session was initiated
from a remote host. In typical xdm usage, this options is not used.
- -s slot-number
- Each
potential session has a unique slot number in BSD systems, most are identified
by the position of the line-name in the /etc/ttys file. This option overrides
the default position determined with ttyslot(3)
. This option is inappropriate
for use with xdm, the -x option is more useful.
- -x Xservers-file
- As X sessions
are one-per-display, and each display is entered in this file, this options
sets the slot-number to be the number of lines in the ttys-file plus the
index into this file that the line-name is found.
- -t ttys-file
- This specifies
an alternate file which the -x option will use to count the number of terminal
sessions on a host.
- -a
- This session should be added to utmp/wtmp.
- -d
- This session
should be deleted from utmp/wtmp. One of -a/-d must be specified.
xdm(1)
Keith Packard, MIT X Consortium
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