Arch Linux

Painless

Member

Registered: 2006-02-06

Posts: 234

incorrect number of users on the system?

Hi,

I have a question.

I first noticed (a few weeks ago) via xscreensaver that after a few days uptime that there were 2 users listed as being on my system, but I was the only one logged in.  I am reasonably confident about this because I am the only one (apart from root) on my system with a passworded account.

I've tried the uptime, w and top commands, all show the same result, 2 users.  Probably not surprising since they're from the same package.  I guess they query the kernel.  I've tried re-installing procps.  I've tried logging out and logging in again.  I've tried the commands from a vc, without X running.  Interestingly w says there are 2 users, but only shows me logged in.

I doubt if there is an issue; the only service I'm running is ssh, and my network is behind a fairly robust firewall (ipcop).  Here are the typical outputs of commands:

$ w
 11:45:40 up 5 days, 38 min,  2 users,  load average: 0.17, 0.08, 0.04
USER     TTY        LOGIN@   IDLE   JCPU   PCPU WHAT
rob      vc/1      10:50   53:25  40.91s  0.00s /bin/sh /usr/bin/startx -- -nol

$ uptime
 11:46:21 up 5 days, 39 min,  2 users,  load average: 0.09, 0.06, 0.04

output from top:

top - 11:46:48 up 5 days, 39 min,  2 users,  load average: 0.12, 0.07, 0.04
Tasks:  52 total,   2 running,  49 sleeping,   0 stopped,   1 zombie
Cpu(s):  0.0%us,  0.0%sy,  0.0%ni, 99.7%id,  0.0%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.3%si,  0.0%st

This is not the first time this has happened.  It has occurred at least twice with earlier kernels (that's when I tend to reboot, which clears this temporarily), and as I said earlier, this only seems to happen after a few days uptime.

Any ideas anyone?

Thanks,

Rob