Subject: utmp file format change
To: None <tech-userlevel@netbsd.org>
From: Jun-ichiro itojun Hagino <itojun@iijlab.net>
List: tech-userlevel
Date: 08/22/2001 17:38:30
	I really would love to see utmp/wtmp file format to be updated before
	1.6, so that it would be able to accomodate full IPv6 numeric address
	as well as longer host names.

	there's no magic number nor length specifier field in old utmp format,
	which is a problem for me.

	past discussions and prior arts are as follows:
	- when it was discussed last time, the discussion went to like:
	  (1) some API would be nice (2) use db, and some other comments
	- Solaris uses struct utmpx, instead of utmp.  which does not look very
	  good to me.
	- openbsd bumped UT_xx (file format changed), with no backward
	  compatibility supplied for older log files.
	- bsdi is using bigger UT_xx from day one.
	- freebsd did nothing yet.

	the approach I like the best is the openbsd one, with a bit of clever
	backward compat code in last(1) and other tools.  any comments?

itojun