LOGIN(3)		   Linux Programmers Manual		     LOGIN(3)



NAME
       login, logout - write utmp and wtmp entries

SYNOPSIS
       #include 

       void login(const struct utmp *ut);

       int logout(const char *ut_line);

       Link with -lutil.

DESCRIPTION
       The utmp file records who is currently using the system.  The wtmp file
       records all logins and logouts.	See utmp(5).

       The function login() takes the supplied struct utmp, ut, and writes  it
       to both the utmp and the wtmp file.

       The function logout() clears the entry in the utmp file again.

   GNU Details
       More  precisely,  login() takes the argument ut struct, fills the field
       ut->ut_type (if there is such a field) with the value USER_PROCESS, and
       fills  the field ut->ut_pid (if there is such a field) with the process
       ID  of  the  calling  process.	Then  it  tries  to  fill  the	 field
       ut->ut_line.   It  takes  the  first of stdin, stdout, stderr that is a
       tty, and stores the corresponding pathname  minus  a  possible  leading
       /dev/ into this field, and then writes the struct to the utmp file.  On
       the other hand, if no tty name was found, this  field  is  filled  with
       "???"  and the struct is not written to the utmp file.  After this, the
       struct is written to the wtmp file.

       The logout() function searches the utmp file for an entry matching  the
       ut_line	argument.   If a record is found, it is updated by zeroing out
       the ut_name and ut_host fields, updating the ut_tv timestamp field  and
       setting ut_type (if there is such a field) to DEAD_PROCESS.

RETURN VALUE
       The  logout()  function returns 1 if the entry was successfully written
       to the database, or 0 if an error occurred.

FILES
       /var/run/utmp
	      user  accounting	database,  configured  through	_PATH_UTMP  in
	      

       /var/log/wtmp
	      user  accounting	log  file,  configured	through  _PATH_WTMP in
	      

CONFORMING TO
       Not in POSIX.1-2001.  Present on the BSDs.

NOTES
       Note that the member ut_user of struct utmp is called ut_name  in  BSD.
       Therefore, ut_name is defined as an alias for ut_user in .

SEE ALSO
       getutent(3), utmp(5)

COLOPHON
       This  page  is  part of release 3.05 of the Linux man-pages project.  A
       description of the project, and information about reporting  bugs,  can
       be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.



GNU				  2004-05-06			      LOGIN(3)