[SOLVED] Problems with systemd-update-utmp after systemd update

Question

Hi all,
I noticed that systemd-update-utmp-runlevel.service has been failing since the last systemd update. My systemd is:
Repository : core
Name : systemd
Version : 184-2
$ systemctl status systemd-update-utmp-runlevel.service
systemd-update-utmp-runlevel.service - Update UTMP about System Runlevel Changes
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/systemd-update-utmp-runlevel.service; static)
Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Sat, 02 Jun 2012 13:55:40 +0200; 56min ago
Docs: man:utmp(5)
Main PID: 395 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
CGroup: name=systemd:/system/systemd-update-utmp-runlevel.service
The exact cause of error is:
Jun 02 13:55:40 arch systemd-update-utmp[395]: Failed to write utmp record: No such file or directory
Jun 02 13:55:40 arch systemd[1]: systemd-update-utmp-runlevel.service: main process exited, code=exited, status=1
What's more, after this update I am not able to mount vmware hgfs shares. I've got following entry in my /etc/fstab (from arch's wiki)
#enable shared folders
.host:/ /mnt/hgfs vmhgfs defaults,ttl=5 0 0
It worked just fine. After the update system boots into maintenance mode with the following message found in sysemd-journal:
arch mount[143]: Directory in share name must not be empty
arch mount[143]: Error: share name is invalid, aborting mount
After commenting hgfs mount entry out the system boots normally.
Thanks in advance.
EDIT:
Mounting hgfs shares manually works as expected
$: sudo mount /mnt/hgfs
Could not add entry to mtab, continuing
mtab:
.host:/ /mnt/hgfs vmhgfs rw,relatime 0 0
so this issue must be systemd related
Last edited by mrzeznicki (2012-06-07 15:18:05)

Answer 1

falconindy wrote:Still can't reproduce this. libmount's parser does just fine with ".host" as a dummy entry in my /etc/hosts file mapped for an NFS share.
Yep, libmount is probably not a problem, I guess this error comes from vmware's hgfsmounter
static Bool
ParseShareName(const char *shareName, // IN: Share name to validate
const char **shareNameHost, // OUT: Share name, host component
const char **shareNameDir) // OUT: Share name, dir component
const char *colon, *dir;
/* 1) Must be colon separated into host and dir. */
colon = strchr(shareName, ':');
if (colon == NULL) {
printf("Share name must be in host:dir format\n");
return FALSE;
/* 2) Dir must not be empty. */
dir = colon + 1;
if (*dir == '\0') {
printf("Directory in share name must not be empty\n");
return FALSE;
/* 3) Dir must start with forward slash. */
if (*dir != '/') {
printf("Directory in share name must be an absolute path\n");
return FALSE;
/* 4) Host must be ".host". */
if (strncmp(shareName, ".host:", 6) != 0) {
printf("Host in share name must be \".host\"\n");
return FALSE;
*shareNameHost = ".host";
LOG("Host component of share name is \"%s\"\n", *shareNameHost);
*shareNameDir = dir;
LOG("Directory component of share name is \"%s\"\n", *shareNameDir);
return TRUE;
I am just wondering why it worked before (and why manual mount works). Is there anything in systemd mount layer that consumes '/'?