[feature request] Provide a tool to migrate legacy data to new format

[normanr]

I'd like to be able to view my historical wtmp records using wtmpdb. Is there a way to migrate them into the new database format?

Maybe something that takes the output of utmpdump and creates an INSERT INTO statement would be sufficient?

[thkukuk]

That was on my TODO list, but it's not as simple, since /var/log/wtmp has two entries, one for login, one for logout, while wtmpdb has only one for both. So you need to find the corresponding entries and merge them.
This is a big effort with little benefit, as you can simply continue to use the old last tool for the old wtmp files.
So current I have more important things on the list, I doubt this feature will really come.

[normanr]

ack. Debian recently dropped last from their util-linux package, and added wtmpdb as a suggestion, which is how I found out about it. It's not clear to me what the difference between wtmpdb and lastlog2 is and which Debian will prefer. They both look very similar.

[thkukuk]

lastlog2 is the successor of lastlog, which did use /var/log/lastlog. It shows if an user was ever logged in and when was the last time, nothing more.

/var/log/wtmp is a log file which records when a user does login, when a user does logout, when the system boots or shutdown and similar events. last is one of the tools which did access /var/log/wtmp besides several others.
You can maybe replace lastlog with wtmp, but not the other way around.