12-29-2011
I have seen data "messed up" on boxes that have excessively large utmpx or wtmpx files.
Or there are disk space issues.
There is no known bug (or patch) for this problem (AFAIK), so I would look at your file sizes, and maybe use dd to rescue the good data from earlier in the file.
The utmpd daemon writes to utmpx and wtmpx, so you can stop the daemon for a minute while you rename the old files.
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=========================
#last
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utmpd(1M) utmpd(1M)
NAME
utmpd - utmpx monitoring daemon
SYNOPSIS
utmpd [-debug]
The utmpd daemon monitors the /var/adm/utmpx file. See utmpx(4) (and utmp(4) for historical information).
utmpd receives requests from pututxline(3C) by way of a named pipe. It maintains a table of processes and uses poll(2) on /proc files to
detect process termination. When utmpd detects that a process has terminated, it checks that the process has removed its utmpx entry from
/var/adm/utmpx. If the process' utmpx entry has not been removed, utmpd removes the entry. By periodically scanning the /var/adm/utmpx
file, utmpd also monitors processes that are not in its table.
-debug Run in debug mode, leaving the process connected to the controlling terminal. Write debugging information to standard output.
The following exit values are returned:
0 Successful completion.
>0 An error occurred.
/etc/default/utmpd
You can set default values for the flags listed below. For example: SCAN_PERIOD=600
SCAN_PERIOD
The number of seconds that utmpd sleeps between checks of /proc to see if monitored processes are still alive. The default is 300.
MAX_FDS
The maximum number of processes that utmpd attempts to monitor. The default value is 4096.
WTMPX_UPDATE_FREQ
The number of seconds that utmpd sleeps between read accesses of the wtmpx file. The wtmpx file's last access time is used by
init(1M) on reboot to determine when the operating system became unavailable. The default is 60.
/var/adm/utmpx
File containing user and accounting information for commands such as who(1), write(1), and login(1).
/proc
Directory containing files for processes whose utmpx entries are being monitored.
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
|Availability |SUNWcsu |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
svcs(1), init(1M), svcadm(1M), poll(2), pututxline(3C), proc(4), utmp(4), utmpx(4), attributes(5), smf(5)
NOTES
If the filesystem holding /var/adm/wtmpx is mounted with options which inhibit or defer access time updates, an unknown amount of error
will be introduced into the utmp DOWN_TIME record's timestamp in the event of an uncontrolled shutdown (for example, a crash or loss of
power ). Controlled shutdowns will update the modify time of /var/adm/wtmpx, which will be used on the next boot to determine when the pre-
vious shutdown ocurred, regardless of access time deferral or inhibition.
The utmpd service is managed by the service management facility, smf(5), under the service identifier:
svc:/system/filesystem/utmp:default
Administrative actions on this service, such as enabling, disabling, or requesting restart, can be performed using svcadm(1M). The ser-
vice's status can be queried using the svcs(1) command.
12 Sep 2005 utmpd(1M)