4 dev What is getty_ps?

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This is just another version of getty, which is a program that handles some of the login process when you log in to a UNIX box. It was written by Paul Sutcliffe, Jr. <paul@devon.lns.pa.us>. Kris Gleason <gleasokr@boulder.colorado.edu> currently maintains it. 2.0.7e is the latest version, and supercedes any older versions. Most Linux distributions come with getty_ps installed as the default getty. Thus, I will mainly focus on using the getty_ps package in this document, but you are free to use any getty you like. You should check to make sure you do indeed have getty_ps as the default getty. At your Linux prompt, type:

linux# strings /etc/getty | grep RINGBACK 

If grep returns ``RINGBACK'' then you have the right getty. If you do not have this version of getty, I highly recommend that you get it. It can be found on the standard Linux FTP sites. (Kris has promised me to implement a version feature in the next release, to avoid doing this grep sillyness.)

4.1 Installing getty_ps

Get the package from a Linux FTP site, and install according to the instructions.

Be sure that the new getty_ps works correctly before you remove all the other versions! I recommend changing one of your virtual console lines from:

c2:23456:respawn:/etc/getty tty2

to:

c2:23456:respawn:/etc/getty_ps tty2 VC console

Put this line in your /etc/gettydefs:

VC# B9600 SANE CLOCAL # B9600 SANE -ISTRIP CLOCAL #@S @L login: #VC

and restart init:

linux# kill -HUP 1

If you can log in on a console with getty_ps, it's working. Move getty_ps to getty or link it. Be sure to update your /etc/inittab to correctly invoke the new getty. The entries need to be in the form of:

id:runlevel:action:/etc/{uu}getty [options] line [speed [term [lined]]]

getty_ps also uses syslogd to log messages. See the man pages for syslogd(1) and syslog.conf(5) for setting up syslogd, if you don't have it running already. Messages are logged with priority LOG_AUTH, errors use LOG_ERR, and debugging uses LOG_DEBUG. If you don't want to use syslogd you can edit tune.h in the getty_ps source files to use a log file for messages and debugging instead, but you'll have to recompile the whole thing.

Once you have installed getty_ps, and are certain it is working, you can remove any other versions of getty you have. Be sure to check in /bin, /etc, /usr/bin, /usr/etc, /usr/man/man1, and /usr/man/cat1 for any thing called getty - there are old versions lurking everywhere. Also, you can safely remove the old config file /etc/gettytab - you only need /etc/gettydefs. From this point on, all references to getty will refer to getty_ps. References to uugetty will refer to the uugetty that comes with the getty_ps package.

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