Bug#1125682: xterm sessions do not appear in loginctl output

On Fri, Jan 16, 2026 at 12:19:04AM +0100, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> Package: xterm
> Version: 406-1
> Severity: normal

perhaps wishlist.
 
> In Debian, utmp has been replaced by systemd/logind. But xterm
> sessions do not appear in loginctl output. This is needed for
> "wall" to work in Debian:

systemd (when working correctly...) will only make sessions for logins.

xterm doesn't create sessions by default.

In a quick check, "xterm -ls" does run a "login" shell, but systemd
doesn't know about that (something to investigate).

strace reminds me that xterm isn't able to write to utmp since that's
been removed.  If it hadn't been removed, (again looking at strace),
"who" and "w" would see that information in addition to what it gets
via systemd's intentionally undocumented sessions data.
 
> https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1115259#10
> 
> "wall is built with systemd/logind support, the modern replacement 
> for utmp.

that's not a good use of "modern".

-- 
Thomas E. Dickey <[email protected]>
https://invisible-island.net

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