utmpd Daemon

Purpose

Monitors and maintains /etc/utmp file.

Syntax

/usr/sbin/utmpd [ Interval ]

Description

The utmpd daemon monitors the /etc/utmp file for validity of the user process entries at regular intervals. An user process that has been terminated, but has not been cleaned up in the /etc/utmp file, is removed by cross checking the process id of the entry against the process table.

The Interval parameter specifies the amount of time in seconds between each scan of the /etc/utmp file. The default interval time would be 300 seconds.

Usage

To start utmpd from /etc/inittab, add the following entry to the file:

utmpd:2:respawn:/usr/sbin/utmpd

init starts the utmpd daemon during system startup. To have the changes take effects immediately without rebooting, type:

telinit q

Security

Only the root user can read and execute this command.

Files

Item	Description
/etc/inittab	Specifies stanzas read by the init command.
/etc/utmp	Contains a record of users logged into the system.