[Buildroot] Dropbear reports errors in system log

Michael S. Zick minimod at morethan.org
Mon Sep 12 12:45:43 UTC 2011


On Mon September 12 2011, Will Moore wrote:
> Buildroot dropbear is configured to log ssh access to /var/log/lastlog and
> /var/log/wtmp as well as /var/log/utmp.  It successfully logs to /var/log/utmp
> but reports the following entries in the /var/log/messages system log:
> 
> Sep 12 06:42:43 buildroot authpriv.warn dropbear[1019]: lastlog_perform_login:
> Couldn't stat /var/log/lastlog: No such file or directory
> Sep 12 06:42:43 buildroot authpriv.warn dropbear[1019]: lastlog_openseek:
> /var/log/lastlog is not a file or directory!
> Sep 12 06:42:43 buildroot authpriv.warn dropbear[1019]: wtmp_write: problem
> writing /var/log/wtmp: No such file or directory
> 
> I believe these errors can be stopped either by creating /var/log/lastlog and
> /var/log/wtmp (but this would seem to just duplicate logging) or by configuring
> dropbear --disable-lastlog and --disable-wtmp (better).  Is there something I am
> missing?
> 
> I note that other login accesses are reported to /var/log/utmp too.  Is there
> anything stopping /var/log/utmp growing over time?
>

A diligent administrator who does not want the default *nix behavior.

Seriously -
The utmp file was designed to be very small in *nix systems because
it was intended to grow over the life of the software installation.

For instance, the system on which I am writing this, that gets multiple
logins each and every day for seven years: 3,072 bytes.

So yes, it does grow over time, unless you do something about it.
Like, maybe delete it once a decade or when it reaches 4K bytes (one memory page).

Mike

> Regards,
> 
> 
> 
> Will
> 
> 
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