/var/log/wtmp
 

This file seems to be getting very big (over 150M on my 770). If I delete it, it will get generated again by the system. I linked it to /dev/null and have noticed no ill affect. In fact I can now load complex web pages that used to force a reboot. Since I really do not care about logging on my 770, is there any downside to doing this?

Never mind, I found what I needed on the mailing list. That was strange. Anyway, my 770 seems to be much more stable with the wtmp file linked to null.

You can (or at least should be able to) delete it with no ill affects. It'll get recreated everytime you reboot (shutdown restart).

I'm curious now what is in wtemp on this thing. I never thought to look..

It is a system log file that tracks mostly login events on the 770. It seems to grow larger and larger with use. It will even increase in size every time you put the 770 in its case. I really do not see a need for it. I linked mine to /dev/null which is the "black hole". Any system writes to the file will essentially disappear. It seems to run much better this way. It has been a couple days now configured this way.

syntax
 

what did you enter on the command line?

i tried:

ln /var/log/wtmp /dev/null

but i get the error:

ln: /dev/null: Invalid cross-device link

not sure what to do here.

any ideas?

As root

rm /var/log/wtmp
ln -s /dev/null /var/log/wtmp

Mine only shows the reboots. The fact that its there means that the last command is too. Shows who's been logging in. I agree though, it is kind of pointless to have, and like I said, you should be able to remove it no problems.

If you delete it, it will come back. It gets huge. Really huge. If you type:

ls -lh /var/log/wtmp

in Xterm it will display the file size. The size is at least several Megabytes, even soon after it is deleted it will grow to a large size. For a portable device with limited resources, this seems not so good. What is the size of your /var/log/wtmp?

thanks, that did the trick.

mine is 21.5M

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 21.5M Apr 14 00:56 /var/log/wtmp

btw, I am using the extrootfs script, so 21M wasn't too bad considering I have 680 free. But still, hopefully things will be a little more stable.

I don't think these values are very significant or trustworthy. I had never heard of that file before, and when I checked after reading this on my 770 it appeared with a size of 231 MB ! Obviously not possible on a "stock" unit (no swap on MMC etc.). After deleting it and linking it to /dev/null as above I didn't see any change in memory occupation, either.