[ On Sun, April  7, 1996 at 19:57:17 (+0200), assar@pdc.kth.se wrote: ]
> Subject: long hostnames in utmp
>
> That does not solve the problem.  The hostname can be of any length.
> Either make the field variable-length or (my preference) just log the
> IP-address and let last/who/whatever do the reverse mapping.

Every time I've thought about this problem with any serious intentions
(which is at least a dozen times in the past 8 years), I've decided that
I need to record both the IP address and the current reverse mapping so
that in the case of an anomaly I can validate the name and see if anyone
was playing DNS games on me.  I'd be happy to have a separate log file
for the hostnames (matched with a guaranteed unique key to wtmp), and
just an IP number in utmp.  I'd rather not deal with a variable length
field in a binary log file like wtmp, and definitely not in a state file
like utmp.

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

+1 416 443-1734			VE3TCP			robohack!woods
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>; Secrets Of The Weird <woods@weird.com>