The following reply was made to PR bin/32903; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: i18rabbit@cwazy.co.uk
To: gnats-bugs@netbsd.org
Cc: 
Subject: Re: bin/32903: utmp remains empty
Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2006 09:06:01 GMT

 >  > >Sounds like your install is pretty messed up, including your NetBSD 2.x
 >  > >install. Here's the /etc/group file from NetBSD 2.0; note that it has
 >  > >a utmp group:
 >  >
 >  > Not quite.
 > 
 >  > The ownership of /var/log/{lastlog,wtmp}{,x} changed to GID utmp with
 >  > NetBSD 3.
 > 
 >  Perhaps so, but the point is that i18rabbit's system didn't even
 >  _have_ a utmp group. And the utmp file was group wheel, not wtmp.
 >  /etc/mtree/special 1.1 from 1994 had utmp gname=utmp; that it was group
 >  wheel on his system points to a problem.
 
 it still hasn't been addressed as to why
 group ownership of utmp files would matter.
 getty/login run as root, and can write to
 any file they want to.  sshd writes to
 utmp properly - so this is further
 evidence that it is not a ownership problem.