Bug#973737: systemd: wtmp not updated after unexpected reboot

[Michael Biebl]

Control: tags -1 + moreinfo

Hello

Am 04.11.20 um 08:42 schrieb Guy Geens:
> Package: systemd
> Version: 241-7~deb10u4
> Severity: normal
> 
> Dear Maintainer,
> 
> Recently, I had a power loss on one of my machines.
> 
> After the reboot, wtmp contained the following entries:
> 
> $ last reboot
> reboot   system boot  4.19.0-12-amd64  Tue Nov  3 09:09   still running
> reboot   system boot  4.19.0-12-amd64  Mon Oct 19 14:54   still running
> reboot   system boot  4.19.0-11-amd64  Sat Sep 26 12:27 - 14:54 (23+02:26)
> 
> The previous reboot is still listed as "running", while it should have
> been updated.

wtmp is a SysV compat interface and systemd simply tries to emulate the 
old SysV behavior here. It is my understanding that under sysvinit, if 
you had a forced power off/reboot, /var/log/wtmp wasn't updated as well.
I don't think it makes sense to change this old SysV init behavior and 
diverge in systemd.

Regards,
Michael