Enabling login logging in Ubuntu 9.10

Question

On a Ubuntu 9.10 system:

$ uname -a
Linux ionut-laptop 2.6.31-14-generic #48-Ubuntu SMP Fri Oct 16 14:04:26 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux

the files /var/log/wtmp and /var/log/btmp are empty:

$ ls -la /var/log/?tmp
-rw-rw---- 1 root utmp 0 2010-04-10 16:54 /var/log/btmp
-rw-rw-r-- 1 root utmp 0 2010-04-10 16:54 /var/log/wtmp

Because of this, the last(1) command is not working.

What to do?

Answer 1

I'd suggest your problem is that it's being rotated. What does ls -la /var/log/?tmp* show?

Does your /etc/logrotate.conf have entries for wtmp and btmp?