I have a Solaris 8 Ultra 1 on my network that we use as a utility server.

The last command, which looks in the /var/adm/wtmpx file, is not working.

When I do a last, the latest entry is dated June 3, but the /var/adm/wtmpx file is dated whenever a login is successful (verified by typing a ls -al in the /var/adm directory).

I've rebooted the server, thinking that a process/daemon was hung, but no luck.

Any thoughts? Suggestions?

Many thanks for your support.

Does:

last -f /var/adm/wtmpx

produce the output you are looking for? Also check permissions on /var/adm/wtmpx. Should be owner and group 'adm' and be 644 permissions

I get the same result as if I had typed the last command.

The last -f /var/adm/wtmpx command returns the last date as June 3.

The permissions and owner/group are as you indicated.

The size of the wtmpx file is 1736260kb and that the time stamp does change when someone logs onto the server.

Ok a few things to check.

is the /var partition full?

df -k /var

Will tell you. Whats the final line of output from your last command ... should read something like:

wtmp begins Wed May 19 14:41

if you do

last reboot

Does it show the previous reboots correctly?

And just to be 100% sure ... Please be aware that 'last' displays the entries in revers order ... ie the most recent entries appear first. So if you run

last | more

The most recent login with be the first line on the first page.