How do you write a shell script program that can tell when someone logs into the system? What are the outlined steps needed to accomplish this task?

hi
when someone logs into the system
there is a entry done in the "utmp" file

so u need to keep a check on that file

it is found in
/var/run/utmp

regards
gaurav

Just to expand on what masand said, you can use the "last" command to see what users have logged on in the past, and the who or w commands to see who is currently logged onto your system. These programs use the utmp and wtmp files to do their jobs.

if u do not want to use the who ,w command in ur shell script

u can write u r own C program t0 parse the utmp file(and use that in ur shell script)
there are utmp functions for that also

man utmp
will guide u
regards
gaurav

Thank you so very much. That information was right on target, however, could you give an example outline how to write the code that I need to write a progam that will get this done? I am new at Linux and this was a project that was given to me to do and I don't have a clue how to get started with it. My textbook is so vague and adds so very little input into exactly how to get the code written to accomplish this project

hi there
i have finished the program and
i am uploading the file to myproject site

masand.sourceforge.net

will keep uposted on that

regards

It really depends on exactly what you want to do with the ionformation. For example, typing:

last

at the cmd line shows logins up to and including current logins. On my RH9 box, the latest (ie most recent) are at the top of the list. Current ie ongoing logins are marked as such.

Typing

who

at the cmd line just shows current sessions/users.
Both cmd have a list of optional params that will show related factoids about each seesion or types of sesssions etc. See the man(ual) pages:

man who

man last

First you need to decide exactly what information you require, then you can start thinking of writing a script if needed to mangle the info.
You can just capture it into a file by eg:

last > t.t

HTH

Thanks Chris,
Yes, what I would like to do is capture the information needed to determine the date and time of logon of a certain user on a given day; then write a script program that utilizes the captured information and print it on demand.