wtmp file got too big

can I delete it?

[newbies]

I just noticed that there are two wtmp files (wtmp and wtmp.1) on my RH linux system. Both are hundreds MB and eat up my disk space. Can I discard them and create new ones?

Thanks in advance.

[Duckula]

wtmp.1 is a backup archive; it's no longer being used, archive and remove it and forget about it.

wtmp should be still being written to, but can be emptied if you want. The proper way I guess is by 'echo "" > /var/log/wtmp', not removing it.

[newbies]

Thank you Duckula.

I will delete wtmp.1 file and empty wtmp.