this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I can hear the conspiracy theories already.

For anyone wondering, the systemd option exists because the utmp file format uses 32-bit time stamps on 32-bit machines, so commands like who will report incorrect times on such machines. If systemd is available, then it will just ask systemd for a list of active user sessions and when they started, since systemd already tracks that information as part of its process-supervision duties. No need to look at potentially-incorrect utmp files then.