risingsun
July 11th, 2009, 06:33 PM
Hi, the above message recently appeared in my log file viewer - "This file is not a regular file or is not a text file" for /var/log/btmp. Now this is somewhat disconcerting since I've never seen it before, but also because I only just did a reinstall today and I believe this pertains to failed logins which worries me.
The other unusual thing about this file is that the time on it is incorrect, at the time of initial checking it was in the future - 11:28 when the time was only about 10:48. Now I certainly don't recall any failed logins on my part at 10:28 either, which makes me worry as to what caused it. I should be behind a router firewall and since this is a fresh install I've not touched any ports, nor did I think I had installed an ssh server (this isn't installed by default, correct?) the incorrect time could be because of Daylight savings or somesuch I guess, but I wouldn't know if this would cause the file properties to be incorrectly set.
Checking lastb seems to indicate the failed login was on tt7 : 0 as my username - is this a possible remote login or is this physically local login only (I assume tt7 is the default X server, in which case should I not have been using it at the time anyway? This isn't the remote desktop is it, I thought I had disabled it on startup.)
Any info anyone can shed on this is very very welcome - is it a glitch in log generation, a failed cron login or somesuch or something more serious? I am rather concerned about this since I've not seen it before and I don't relish the prospect of having to reinstall over again. If it is nothing, does anyone know the cause of the logfile viewer error.
The other unusual thing about this file is that the time on it is incorrect, at the time of initial checking it was in the future - 11:28 when the time was only about 10:48. Now I certainly don't recall any failed logins on my part at 10:28 either, which makes me worry as to what caused it. I should be behind a router firewall and since this is a fresh install I've not touched any ports, nor did I think I had installed an ssh server (this isn't installed by default, correct?) the incorrect time could be because of Daylight savings or somesuch I guess, but I wouldn't know if this would cause the file properties to be incorrectly set.
Checking lastb seems to indicate the failed login was on tt7 : 0 as my username - is this a possible remote login or is this physically local login only (I assume tt7 is the default X server, in which case should I not have been using it at the time anyway? This isn't the remote desktop is it, I thought I had disabled it on startup.)
Any info anyone can shed on this is very very welcome - is it a glitch in log generation, a failed cron login or somesuch or something more serious? I am rather concerned about this since I've not seen it before and I don't relish the prospect of having to reinstall over again. If it is nothing, does anyone know the cause of the logfile viewer error.