weird utmp/perl problem

["B. Bell" <maximill@u.washington.edu>]

Okay, I've got a strange problem here.  I'm trying to build a .deb, using
the devscripts tools and dpkg-dev...
I get a utmp error when I try to build:

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
$ build
no utmp entry available, using value of LOGNAME ("brad") at
/usr/lib/dpkg/controllib.pl line 16.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

okay, not a disaster, there, but sometimes it eventually dies anyway,
because it can't find LOGNAME either, or the uid of some process...?

at first I thought maybe the problem was caused by the utmp
incompatibility between libc5 and libc6, even though I have a 100% hamm
system, and I even tried deleting utmp and wtmp and rebooting.
that didn't work, so I don't believe utmp is really the problem,
especially since this is the only place I've ever gotten a utmp-related 
error.

so, I look at the source of the error in /usr/lib/dpkg/controllib.pl

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
if (defined ($ENV{'LOGNAME'})) {
    if (!defined (getlogin ())) { 
        warn (sprintf ('no utmp entry available, using value of LOGNAME
("%s")', $ENV{'LOGNAME'})); 
    } else {
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

now I'm suspicious, so I write a test script using my two-bit perl skills:

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
#!/usr/bin/perl -w

if (defined (getlogin ())) {
    warn (sprintf ('no utmp entry available'));
} else {
    warn (sprintf ('utmp entry is ("%s")',
getlogin()));
}
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

and run it:

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
$./testutmp
utmp entry is ("brad") at ./test line 6.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

can anybody give me some help as to why this script works, but
/usr/lib/dpkg/controllib.pl fails?

thanks,
brad




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