SESSREG(1) MachTen Programmer’s Manual SESSREG(1)

NAME
sessreg - manage utmp/wtmp entries for non-init clients

SYNOPSIS
sessreg [-w wtmp-file] [-u utmp-file] [-l line-name] [-h
host-name] [-s slot-number] [-x Xservers-file] [-t ttys-
file] [-a] [-d] user-name

DESCRIPTION
Sessreg is a simple program for managing utmp/wtmp entries
for xdm sessions.

System V has a better interface to /etc/utmp than BSD; it
dynamically allocates entries in the file, instead of
writing them at fixed positions indexed by position in
/etc/ttys.

To manage BSD-style utmp files, sessreg has two strate-
gies. In conjunction with xdm, the -x option counts the
number of lines in /etc/ttys and then adds to that the
number of the line in the Xservers file which specifies
the display. The display name must be specified as the
"line-name" using the -l option. This sum is used as the
"slot-number" in /etc/utmp that this entry will be written
at. In the more general case, the -s option specifies the
slot-number directly. If for some strange reason your
system uses a file other that /etc/ttys to manage init,
the -t option can direct sessreg to look elsewhere for a
count of terminal sessions.

Conversely, System V managers will not ever need to use
these options (-x, -s and -t). To make the program easier
to document and explain, sessreg accepts the BSD-specific
flags in the System V environment and ignores them.

BSD also has a host-name field in the utmp file which
doesn’t exist in System V. This option is also ignored by
the System V version of sessreg.

USAGE
In Xstartup, place a call like:

sessreg -a -l $DISPLAY -x /usr/X11R6/lib/xdm/Xservers $USER

and in Xreset:

sessreg -d -l $DISPLAY -x /usr/X11R6/lib/xdm/Xservers $USER

OPTIONS
-w wtmp-file
This specifies an alternate wtmp file, instead of
/usr/adm/wtmp for BSD or /etc/wtmp for sysV. The
special name "none" disables writing records to
/usr/adm/wtmp.

-u utmp-file
This specifies an alternate utmp file, instead of
"/etc/utmp". The special name "none" disables
writing records to /etc/utmp.

-l line-name
This describes the "line" name of the entry. For
terminal sessions, this is the final pathname seg-
ment of the terminal device filename (e.g. ttyd0).
For X sessions, it should probably be the local
display name given to the users session (e.g. :0).
If none is specified, the terminal name will be
determined with ttyname(3) and stripped of leading
components.

-h host-name
This is set for BSD hosts to indicate that the ses-
sion was initiated from a remote host. In typical
xdm usage, this options is not used.

-s slot-number
Each potential session has a unique slot number in
BSD systems, most are identified by the position of
the line-name in the /etc/ttys file. This option
overrides the default position determined with
ttyslot(3). This option is inappropriate for use
with xdm, the -x option is more useful.

-x Xservers-file
As X sessions are one-per-display, and each display
is entered in this file, this options sets the
slot-number to be the number of lines in the ttys-
file plus the index into this file that the line-
name is found.

-t ttys-file
This specifies an alternate file which the -x
option will use to count the number of terminal
sessions on a host.

-a This session should be added to utmp/wtmp.

-d This session should be deleted from utmp/wtmp. One
of -a/-d must be specified.