UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi all..

I was trying to do a little shell script, that would list users and their login times, lets say like last 5 days.

But I couldnt figure out how to count users login times from previous days. Any tips?

Funny that nobody has do this kinda script before, or atleast I couldnt find on from anywhere.

-k-

Maybe try moving this to the scripting section on the forum instead... will probably have better luck.

https://www.unix.com/shell-programming-scripting/

First find out if you have a wtmp file and whether it contains the data you require and whether it is properly maintained or left to grow.
man wtmp .
ls -la /var/adm/wtmp
If you have not got a wtmp file, you cannot run the unix "last" command.
man last.

We archive our wtmp file weekly and keep a rolling 3 months. Some systems administrators just let the file grow. A wtmp which is more than one year old gives ambiguous results from "last" because "last" does not display the year. This can be fixed by pre-processing the file with fwtmp and sed.

To check the oldest date in your wtmp file.
cat /var/adm/wtmp|/usr/sbin/acct/fwtmp|head

In general it is easier to save statistics for a day on the day the event occurred. You could save a rolling 5 days of the output from last (for today only) at 23:59 daily. This is subject to having a suitable wtmp file in the first place.