"wtmp" What the hell is this?
 

I have this file call wtmp under /var/log what the hell is it?
Is 60MB big!?!
I use VI to it but it seems to be encrypted or compiled... any ideas out there?

Re: "wtmp" What the hell is this?
 

http://www.gsp.com/cgi-bin/man.cgi?section=5&topic=wtmp

Go ahead and delete it.

Re: "wtmp" What the hell is this?
 

Thanks for the info.... I got thrown off for a sec there...

Re: "wtmp" What the hell is this?
 

Also, see bug #448.

Re: "wtmp" What the hell is this?
 

/var/log/wtmp is what makes the 'last' command work. It used to be there in the previous version of the OS, so 'last' worked (you could see when last you rebooted, when it crashed, when you logged in and so on). Without 'wtmp' that info is gone, and it was removed in the last OS upgrade, but on a mobile device it makes some kind of sense to remove it. Maybe. Anyway, for some reason it was updated way too much in the previous OS version so it grew fast. On the other hand it's on the compressed internal file system so it didn't take much space, those 60MB you saw would probably be just 1 or maybe 2 MB, if that.

Re: "wtmp" What the hell is this?
 

Grate info thanks.... Wierd thing is that I was having major boot up issues the behavior was almost like there was no more space in root... I deleted that file and it all works fine again...

Re: "wtmp" What the hell is this?
 

It will be re-created if you delete it. It's better to do as follows:
sudo gainroot
cd /var/log
rm wtmp; ln -s /dev/null wtmp

The file will now be there, but symlinked to the bottomless sink.
(For those on the latest OS version: The above doesn't apply, as the file is not written anymore. It's for those on the previous version.)

Re: "wtmp" What the hell is this?
 

Thank You for the tip!