Bug#1043507: ITP: wtmpdb -- Year 2038 safe wtmp implementation
Package: wnpp
Severity: wishlist
Owner: Sven Joachim <svenjoac@gmx.de>
X-Debbugs-Cc: debian-devel@lists.debian.org
* Package name : wtmpdb
Version : 0.8.0
Upstream Contact: Thorsten Kukuk <kukuk@suse.com>
* URL : https://github.com/thkukuk/wtmpdb
* License : BSD 2-Clause
Programming Lang: C
Description : Year 2038 safe wtmp implementation
Wtmpdb is a replacement for the `/var/log/wtmp` file which stores
login and logout time of users as well as boot and shutdown times of
the machine. These data are stored in an SQLite database and use
64-bit timestamps on all architectures, thus it will keep working
beyond the year 2038.
OpenSUSE seems to be switching from the wtmp file to wtmpdb already[1].
Whether Debian should or will do the same remains to be seen, but as a
first step I intend to package wtmpdb so it can be evaluated.
It should be noted that the planned transition to 64-bit time_t on
most 32-bit architectures will have an immediate impact on the
/var/log/wtmp file, because programs built with a 64-bit time_t can
suddenly write 64-bit timestamps into the wtmp file or misread
existing ones. See bug #1042562[2] (which only talks about utmp, but
wtmp should be equally affected).
I will need a sponsor at least for the initial upload. Should wtmpdb
gain popularity or even become the default wtmp implementation, I would
like to handle it over to a team.
1. https://microos.opensuse.org/blog/2023-06-28-switch-to-wtmpdb/
2. https://bugs.debian.org/1042562
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