lastlog
lastlog is a program available on most Linux distributions. It formats and prints the contents of the last login log file, /var/log/lastlog (which is a usually a very sparse file), including the login name, port, and last login date and time. It is similar in functionality to the BSD program last, also included in Linux distributions; however, last parses a different binary database file (/var/log/wtmp and /var/log/btmp).
The file is updated by the pam_lastlog.so Pluggable Authentication Module.{{cite web |title=linux-pam source code |url=https://github.com/linux-pam/linux-pam/blob/bc856cd9b9b461e8e2a537f4d9db87d315f5fe7b/modules/pam_lastlog/pam_lastlog.c#L6-L8 |website=Github |access-date=2025-04-21 |ref=src}} The module has been deprecated since 2023, and is announced to be removed in future releases of the pam-linux framework, due to the data structures inherently being affected by the Year 2038 problem.{{cite web |title=linux-pam NEWS document |url=https://github.com/linux-pam/linux-pam/blob/bc856cd9b9b461e8e2a537f4d9db87d315f5fe7b/NEWS#L76-L78 |website=github |access-date=2025-04-21}}
Usage
Lastlog prints its output in column format with login-name, port, and last-login-time of each and every user on the system mentioned in that order. The users are sorted by default according to the order in /etc/passwd However, it can also be used to modify the records kept in /var/log/lastlog.
$ lastlog
Username Port From Latest
root **Never logged in**
user tty3 Sun Jan 14 16:29:24 +0130 2019
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- {{man|8|lastlog|die.net}}
{{Unix commands}}