"no namelist"???

[Alexis Rosen]

All of a sudden, for no particular reason, "w" and "lav" are giving me grief.
They both respond "no namelist" when I try to use them. If I su to root, w
works, but lav doesn't.

The man pages are singularly unhelpful, and the only file that w seems to
want is /etc/utmp, which is world-readable and writeable. Recreating utmp
as an empty file had no beneficial effect.

So, what's a namelist, and can I pick one up at the five & dime?
---
Alexis Rosen
Owner/Sysadmin, PANIX Public Access Unix, NY
{cmcl2,apple}!panix!alexis