No user login info shown on 'last'

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

Since 42.1, i have noticed that ‘last’ does not show when a user logins to X, only console logins and reboots are shown. Here’s a snippet of the output of ‘last’; there were four different users logged in during that period.

reboot   system boot  4.4.27-2-default Sun Nov 27 12:33 - 00:22  (11:49)     
Marcos   pts/0        :0               Sat Nov 26 20:51 - 20:57  (00:05)     
reboot   system boot  4.4.27-2-default Sat Nov 26 12:56 - 00:22 (1+11:26)    
reboot   system boot  4.4.27-2-default Fri Nov 25 10:26 - 00:22 (2+13:56)    
reboot   system boot  4.4.27-2-default Thu Nov 24 21:09 - 00:22 (3+03:13)    
reboot   system boot  4.4.27-2-default Thu Nov 24 17:28 - 20:11  (02:43)     
reboot   system boot  4.4.27-2-default Thu Nov 24 15:36 - 20:11  (04:35)     
reboot   system boot  4.4.27-2-default Thu Nov 24 12:00 - 20:11  (08:11)     
reboot   system boot  4.4.27-2-default Thu Nov 24 09:26 - 09:48  (00:21)     
papi     pts/0        192.168.76.27    Wed Nov 23 18:29 - 18:30  (00:00)     
reboot   system boot  4.4.27-2-default Wed Nov 23 16:12 - 09:48  (17:36)     
reboot   system boot  4.4.27-2-default Wed Nov 23 12:22 - 12:39  (00:17)     
reboot   system boot  4.4.27-2-default Tue Nov 22 18:05 - 12:39  (18:34)     
reboot   system boot  4.4.27-2-default Tue Nov 22 12:06 - 13:59  (01:52)     
reboot   system boot  4.4.27-2-default Tue Nov 22 07:04 - 07:35  (00:30)

Is there any way to log GUI logins like before?

#2

I haven’t used last recently, at least on a systemd system.
But in your position, I’d

  • First check whether the User accounts exist in the logfiles (Maybe grep the User account names?)
  • If the account names are in the logs, then it’s a problem with the last command. If the accounts aren’t in the logs, then IMO it’s an issue related to the level of logging.

TSU

#3

Which displaymanager are you using for login?

I am using “gdm” at present, and it is adding “last” entries (utmp/wtmp entries) for each desktop login.

You are perhaps seeing a bug for your displaymanager.

#4

I’m using SDDM for display manager. Now that you mention it, this issue first appeared on 42.1, when OpenSuSE moved from KDM to SDDM after KDM was deprecated.

#5

Then I may switch to “sddm” for a while, just to test whether I can reproduce the problem.

Actually, “kdm” is still in the repos, and can be installed if you prefer it.

Personally, I do not like “sddm” at all. I usually change to “lightdm”. But this time, I temporarily went with “gdm” because I cannot test “Gnome classic” any other way.

I just tried switching Tumbleweed to “sddm”. And the login with “sddm” is showing in “last”. However, Tumbleweed is running Plasma 5.8.4, while Leap 42.2 is running Plasma 5.8.3. So maybe this has been fixed.

As I understand it, there is a update to 5.8.4 in the queue for 42.2. When I last checked, it was in the “update-test” repo for further testing. So perhaps that will fix the problem. If not, then file a bug report.

#6

Hmm, I was wrong about that.

I have “yakuake” starting up automatically. And the “last” line was being written by that.

I logged in as a different user (my test account, with no automatic startup processes). And nothing was written for the “last” command.

So that does appear to be an “sddm” bug, and it appears to still be there for Plasma 5.8.4.

#7

I just opened a bug on github. Thanks for confirming the bug. :wink: