why does lastlog say ive never logged in?

tjwoosta · 2009-06-29 14:51:34

So I was checking out some threads on noost forums and I came across a thread about somebody who got a message when they tried to shut down saying that they need to input the root password to log out multiple users. This was strange becase there was only supposed to be one user logged in.

I was trying to remember which command to input to check who has logged in. I rememberd lastlog and I tried it on my own machine just to make sure it was the right one. To my astonishment lastlog on my machine says nobody has ever logged in, including me.

[tj@myhost ~]$ lastlog
Username         Port     From             Latest
root                                       **Never logged in**
bin                                        **Never logged in**
daemon                                     **Never logged in**
mail                                       **Never logged in**
ftp                                        **Never logged in**
http                                       **Never logged in**
nobody                                     **Never logged in**
dbus                                       **Never logged in**
tj                                         **Never logged in**
hal                                        **Never logged in**
policykit                                  **Never logged in**
avahi                                      **Never logged in**
gdm                                        **Never logged in**
mpd                                        **Never logged in**
awesome                                    **Never logged in**
ice                                        **Never logged in**
tor                                        **Never logged in**
privoxy                                    **Never logged in**
[tj@myhost ~]

I was like wtf

I also looked at var/log/user.log and its blank

Does this mean my logs have been somehow erased?

I dont have remote acesss or anything like that enabled afaik, how could this happen?

hcjl · 2009-06-29 15:05:48

i have got the same problem. in my user.log there are just a few entries for reboot and halt.

freakyzoidberg · 2009-06-29 20:17:26

maybe a syslog misconfiguration.

here a workaround

cat /var/log/auth.log | grep login

tjwoosta · 2009-06-30 00:47:16

nothing comes up

Arch Linux

#1 2009-06-29 14:51:34

why does lastlog say ive never logged in?

#2 2009-06-29 15:05:48

Re: why does lastlog say ive never logged in?

#3 2009-06-29 20:17:26

Re: why does lastlog say ive never logged in?

#4 2009-06-30 00:47:16

Re: why does lastlog say ive never logged in?

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