How do you fix a corrupted utmpx file without using patches

[Deborah Schwarzenbach]

Hello,
Can anyone tell me how to fix a corrupted utmpx file without using patches to do it?
thanks
Debbie

[A. Clay Stephenson · Accepted solution]

Generally utmp, wtmp, and utmpx files become corrupted because a system needs patching. However, to fix these files, you can use fwtmp. Fwtmp allows you to read in these files and convert them to text files; it also does the reverse operation. The idea is that you use fwtmp to read the binary version of the files and output to a text file. Edit the text file to remove any offending lines and then use fwtmp to read the fixed text file and output in binary format. Man fwtmp for details.