[RFC] Modernizing Linux authentication logs (lastlog, btmp, utmp, wtmp) with SQLite

[Thorsten Kukuk]

On Fri, Mar 13, 2026 at 7:51 PM Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> wrote:
>
> * Roman Bakshansky:
>
> > The full RFC, including preliminary database schemas and API drafts,
> > is available in the discussion repository:
> >
> >      https://github.com/bakshansky/linux-auth-logs
>
> I don't understand how SQLite (without a daemon) addresses the locking
> issue.  WAL mode still uses fcntl locking.

It doesn't, that's why wtmpdb is using a daemon for this.
With pam_lastlog2, the messages aren't important or reliable enough to
justify the overhead. But if you want, you would need to introduce a
daemon, too.

Regards,
Thorsten

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