SLES11SP2 - Access time stops being updated for terminal entries after applying kernel 3.0.74-0.6.6

This document (7012507) is provided subject to the disclaimer at the end of this document.

Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 2

Situation

After updating to kernel 3.0.74-0.6.6-default, the access time for terminal
entries is not updated when the corresponding terminals are accessed.

The problem that this produces is that utilities like "finger" and "w" which
report idle time rely on the access time being updated when the terminal is
accessed.

# finger
Login      Name                  Tty      Idle Login Time   Where
user1 Jim Petersen          pts/0      54     Thu 09:39 137.65.165.129
root       root                  pts/1      53     Thu 09:40 137.65.165.129

# w
10:33:46 up 17:32, 2 users, load average: 0.27, 0.25, 0.27
USER     TTY        LOGIN@   IDLE   JCPU   PCPU WHAT
jpeterse pts/0     09:39   54:04   0.05s 0.05s -bash
root     pts/1     09:40   53:41   0.04s 0.00s w

Resolution

Currently, the workaround is to backrev the kernel to the previous available version,
3.0.58-0.6.6-default.

Cause

Additional Information

Duplication steps:

1. Log in twice. I used ssh and logged in once as user1, and once as root.
2. Check the access date of /dev/pts* (using ls -ltu /dev/pts*)

      # date
      Wed May 23 09:40:47 MDT 2013

      # ll -ltu /dev/pts*
      total 0
      crw--w---- 1 root      tty 136, 1 May 23 09:40 1
      crw--w---- 1 user1 tty 136, 0 May 23 09:39 0
      c--------- 1 root      root   5, 2 May 22 17:01 ptmx

    Then after a few minutes:

      # date
      Wed May 23 09:44:23 MDT 2013

      # ll -ltu /dev/pts*
      total 0
      crw--w---- 1 root      tty 136, 1 May 23 09:40 1
      crw--w---- 1 user1 tty 136, 0 May 23 09:39 0
      c--------- 1 root      root   5, 2 May 22 17:01 ptmx

    The access dates did not change.

    On a server running the previous kernel:

      # date
      Wed May 22 16:51:17 MDT 2013

      # ll -ltu /dev/pts*
      total 0
      crw--w---- 1 root      tty 136, 0 May 22 16:51 0
      crw--w---- 1 user1 tty 136, 1 May 22 16:49 1
      c--------- 1 root      root   5, 2 May 22 16:47 ptmx

    After waiting one minute:

      # ll -ltu /dev/pts*
      total 0
      crw--w---- 1 root      tty 136, 0 May 22 16:51 0
      crw--w---- 1 user1 tty 136, 1 May 22 16:51 1
      c--------- 1 root      root   5, 2 May 22 16:47 ptmx

    As you can see the access time for user1 was updated from 16:49 to
16:51.

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