Bug#866313: systemd: create /var/log/lastlog if it does not exist

[Peter Colberg]

Hi Michael,

On Wed, Jun 28, 2017 at 10:10:25PM +0200, Michael Biebl wrote:
> Am 28.06.2017 um 21:50 schrieb Peter Colberg:
> > Package: systemd
> > Version: 233-9
> > Severity: normal
> > 
> > Dear Maintainer,
> > 
> > Could you extend /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/var.conf as follows?
> > 
> > f /var/log/lastlog 0664 root utmp -
> > 
> > systemd already creates /var/log/wtmp and /var/log/btmp if they do not
> > exist. For custom live-boot images that exclude files under /var/log/,
> > it would be nice to also create /var/log/lastlog, e.g., for sshd:
> > 
> > # grep lastlog /var/log/auth.log
> > Jun 27 20:00:00 huron sshd[1234]: lastlog_openseek: Couldn't stat /var/log/lastlog: No such file or directory
> 
> I can see the reason why /var/log/{utmp,wtmp} are shipped by systemd.
> See man systemd-update-utmp
> 
> I don't immediately see a good reason why such a tmpfile for lastlog
> would belong into systemd though, given that systemd does not touch that
> file at all.
> Can you please elaborate?

In Debian, base-files creates the files /var/log/wtmp /var/log/btmp
/var/log/lastlog in postinst [1]. For consistency, systemd should
recreate all of these three files if needed.

Regards,
Peter

[1] https://sources.debian.net/src/base-files/10/debian/postinst.in/#L86