Does logout from second root session (pts/1) unhides first root session (pts/0)? 
 

yes, if I logout second root session, first one apears again:

[root@sirius root]# w
 00:34:35  up 2 days,  4:31,  3 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
USER     TTY      FROM              LOGIN@   IDLE   JCPU   PCPU  WHAT
ivan     pts/0    post-gw.litech.n 12:30am  4:23   0.10s  0.10s  /usr/sbin/sshd
ivan     pts/1    post-gw.litech.n 12:30am  0.00s  0.17s  0.10s  /usr/sbin/sshd
root     pts/1    localhost        12:34am  0.00s  0.17s  0.02s  w
[root@sirius root]# logout
[ivan@sirius ivan]$ w
 00:34:51  up 2 days,  4:31,  3 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
USER     TTY      FROM              LOGIN@   IDLE   JCPU   PCPU  WHAT
ivan     pts/0    post-gw.litech.n 12:30am  4:39   0.10s  0.10s  /usr/sbin/sshd
ivan     pts/1    post-gw.litech.n 12:30am  0.00s  0.09s  0.01s  w
root     pts/0    localhost        12:30am  4:39   0.10s  0.04s  -bash
[ivan@sirius ivan]$

I can reproduce this in Sisyphus, thanks. 
 

Created attachment 341 [details]
SimplePAMApps-0.60-owl-login-su-ut_id-undo.patch

This patch (partial undo of the SimplePAMApps-0.60-owl-login-su-ut_id.patch)
fixes the problem. Looks like ut_id calculation algorithm in our SimplePAMApps
differs from openssh and libutempter.
I'll contact origin of the patch about that.

It looks it's not a good patch.
I've applied it to the SimplePAMApps-0.60-alt15.src.rpm, build it and installed.

After that if I issue "su -" command, my name changes to "root" in "w" command, 
while in *nix systems I've ever used, after su'ing, "w" command shows my real 
login.

Note: when using "su" command  without "-" parameter the username has not been 
changed.

Furthermore, after issuing "su -" command breaks lastlog and shows a lot of fake 
00:00 records.

I've changed a serverity of this bug, because it make really difficult to use 
ALM2.2 in multiuser environment, when on servers are present a lot of people.

When you login with "su -l", your login name changes. 
When you run "su" without "-l", your login name remains unchanged. 
 
Also, I see no fake records in output of the "last" command: 
joe      pts/1       :0               Fri Feb  6 23:51   still logged in    
root     pts/1       localhost        Fri Feb  6 23:51 - 23:51 (00:00)      
joe      pts/1       :0               Fri Feb  6 23:50 - 23:51 (00:00)      
 
When user joe issued "su -", user root logged on pts/1. 
That is, joe is not logged in on pts/1 untill root is logged out from pts/1. 
What's wrong with that? 
 
btw, I don't care of *unix systems which mishandle the "su -" case. 

Responce from origin of the patch: 
 
"Actually, the desired behavior is not what Ivan describes.  Namely, 
the intent of that code in su is to temporarily replace the entry, not 
to add a new one.  So the desired result would be to have two entries 
(for two root sessions), not four." 

Ok, I'm really sorry if I had hurt your feelings somehow, but I don't understand
why you are so sure, that other *nix-es mishandles "su -". Here is a comment
from su.c of rh9:

   -, -l, --login       Make the subshell a login shell.
                        Unset all environment variables except
                        TERM, HOME and SHELL (set as above), and USER
                        and LOGNAME (set unconditionally as above), and
                        set PATH to a default value.
                        Change to USER's home directory.
                        Prepend "-" to the shell's name.

If it'll be interesting for you same behavor have had all SCO unixes, saving
correction hp-ux, and a lot of other linux distributions.

Next, I agree that there should be two entries, not four. Ok, that's fine.

Again, if it'll be interesting for you I explain, why I think that current
behaivor, when su replaces entry with "root" username is not correct.

With such behaivor I can't see which users are currently in system. I see only
"root","root","root" ... Moreover, I can't see from where they have loggen in,
because "su -" changes FROM field to localhost now.

It's really not good from the administration point of view.

And way of thinking that the user, who have used "su -" command has logged out
is a nonsense! After logout from su shell it don't logout the system, it's going
back to the user shell. Furthermore, if you issue "su -" command user process
"bash" has an owner of "user". And system reports, that user is not in the system!

Further, according to lastlog after logout from su shell user logins to the
system, but any logs doesn't  have any information about users login. It makes
me think, that my system were cracked.

I would like to discuss this problem, and no way to hurt your filling, so please
don't be so brute in your answers, like in your sentence
"btw, I don't care of *unix systems which mishandle the "su -" case. "

May be there is a reason, why other "*unix systems which mishandle the "su -"
case. " ?

Still maybe there isn't: there were several su implementations floating around
for a long time, and the semantics differed quite noticeably.

Ok. Of course it's ALT prerogative to deside how "su" should work in your
distribution.

I want to let you know, that is unaccustomed after rh,suse,and unixes because of
described reasons. And I'm still sure that it's not usefull to replace utmp
record with info "root bla-bla localhost". Nothing informative. Now, to get
information about who is in the system I have to use something like 
ps -ef | grep -- -bash | grep -v grep, and to get info about source of
connection I should make a deep magic with lastlog or netstat.
 
And last one, I want to ask you when approx. will be available update at least
with provided patch?

One more question to clarify the situation: 
I think that after "su -" logname(1) should print "root". 
Do you agree with this assumption? 
 
About timelines, I'm not decided yet how to fix the issue since it may change behaviour. 

Thanks for your quick answer, Dmitry.

Now, about your question touching logname(1). I've made a little investigation.
I tried following command sequence in rh6.2/7.3/9, sco osr5/unixware7 :
1. login as regular user "ivan"
2. su -
3. logname
in all cases (5 times) I got from logname output "ivan". It looks like all of
them don't make changes in utmp log after issuing "su -" command. I don't have
access on weekend to suse/solaris, but I think there will be same situation.

ok, now back to our subject at hand. I think it's good for logname to return
"root" in "su -" environment, but it's bad to remove (change utmp entry for)
user, who did not logged out. He's in the system, he has issued "su -" command,
but he didn't logged out.

That's my oppinion. May be it really makes a sense not to change utmp entry but
add another for "su -" session? How do you think?

Concerning your OS review, I'd like to know *BSD behaviour in this case. 
 
Adding second utmp entry with the same ut_line will result to uncertainty in getlogin(3) 
behaviour, and therefore in logname(1) output: it will return first record with given ut_line. 

Ok, *bsd behavior I'll describe tomorrow, since I have no access to that OS
during weekend also.

Created attachment 342 [details]
SimplePAMApps-0.60-owl-alt-login-su-ut_id.patch

Here is a patch I'm going to use instead of
SimplePAMApps-0.60-owl-login-su-ut_id.patch

Could you please describe in few words behaviour of su after applying this patch 
and after which patch I have to apply it when building?

Now about *bsd behaviour of "su -":
FreeBSD 4.9-RELEASE-p1 :
ssh hellfire -l admin
Password:
hellfire-admin:~ >$ su -
Password:
hellfire-root:~ ># logname
admin
hellfire-root:~ >#
---------------
FreeBSD 4.8-RELEASE:
ssh thewall
Password:
kazantip:~ >$ su -
Password:
root:~ ># logname
kazantip

I've also checked in suse9 -- same situation, after "su -" logname(1) returns 
regular user name, not "root".

So, how will ALT handle this situation?

Fixed in 0.60-alt20 (Sisyphus) and 0.60-owl22 (Owl-current): 
SimplePAMApps-0.60-owl-alt-login-su-ut_id.patch replaces 
SimplePAMApps-0.60-owl-login-su-ut_id.patch 
 
Thanks for interesting discussion. 

thanks for fixing.

Will be fixed rpm available as update for ALM2.2?

Do you think it worths errata? 

I think worth.

If it's interesting for you, I'm running ALM2.2 as db/router/access servers.
I'm planning 28 alm2.2 server installations in region (now I've five), and 
people are working in terminal mode there. It means that all of them do ssh to 
the servers. Some servers have 50 concurent on-line users load. And it's vitaly 
to know how much people there are on-line. The same reason was why I wanted ALM 
behaviour to be the same as other linuxes/unixes in logname(1) handling. But as 
I understood you decide to left it as it was. 

And AFAIK ALM2.2 is last available stable server distribution from ALT (am I 
wrong? compact is beta, isn't it?), so I think fixes of such problems in core 
utils should be available via apt-get.

Ok, I'llprepare update for ALM2.2 

thank you