[svlug] Terminal Logins

[Ray Olszewski]

I'm not familiar with TurboLinux, but since no one else has responded, I
thought I'd take a shot at the general problem.

What "other materials" guided you to the format for the inittab line? I
can't actually find a man page for getty (either on my own system or the
usual Web sources), but the examples I've seen using getty (in /etc/inittab
man pages or sample files) are a bit different. The appropriate getty line
would look something like this (I can't find an exact match in the examples,
so this is a bit extrapolated):

12:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty -d 9600 ttyS0 vt100

But I think that these days, "getty" can be a link to any of several *getty*
apps (mgetty, agetty, uugetty, getty_ps, etc.). The proper syntax varies a
lot from program to program (and I don't know which my example above is for
-- possibly something older than any of them). 

So you might want to check what actual getty app you are running. What, for
example, do your console login lines in inittab look like? Is /sbin/getty a
symlink to something else? Here are suggestions for a few specific ones ....

for agetty --

The Text-Terminal HowTo, for example, lists this example inittab entry:
 
S1:23:respawn:/sbin/getty -L 19200 ttyS1 vt102

"S1 is from ttyS1. 23 means that getty is run upon entering run levels 2 or
3. respawn means that if getty is killed, it will automatically start up
(respawn) again. /sbin/getty is the getty command. The -L means Local
(ignore modem control signals). 19200 is the baud rate. ttyS1 means
/dev/ttyS1 (COM2 in
MS-DOS). vt102 is the type of terminal and this getty will set the
environment variable TERM to this value. There are no configuration files.
Type "init q" on the command line after editing getty and you should see a
login prompt."

for getty_ps -- 

the example inittab entry int the Text-Terminal HowTo matches the one you
listed in your message. But the HowTo also describes an entry in
/etc/gettydefs, which you don't mention. The example entry for that file is
(all text is on one line, in case the mailer adds any line breaks) --

DT38400# B38400 CS8 CLOCAL # B38400 SANE -ISTRIP CLOCAL #@S @L login: #DT38400

There is much more info that that I won't repeat here; the URL is 

http://amelia.db.erau.edu/ldp/HOWTO/Text-Terminal-HOWTO-14.html#getty1

for mgetty -- 

Alvin has a URL that describes use of mgetty on modem lines supporting PPP;
he's mentioned it on this list sometime in the past few weeks. You might
look up his prior posting, then look at the URL and see if his examples can
be adapted to terminal connections.

Finally, what cabling does the terminal use? It's been 6 months or more
since I tried doing something like this, so I'm a bit fuzzy on the cabling
issues. But as I recall, you need some sort of null-modem hookup. Does it
support all 8 (principal) lines of RS232? If it isn't providing CD, DSR (DTR
from the terminal's viewpoint), and whichever of CTS/RTS is appropriate, the
inittab entry may need additional modification (or you may need a null-modem
adaptor that loops back some signals from the PC).

In any case, "init q" is the right command (one of several, actually) to
force init to re-read /etc/inittab . So I doubt an reboot will solve your
problem.

At 01:33 AM 11/27/98 -0800, Javilk wrote:
>
>     I have attached an old VT320 terminal to one of my computers,
>verified that I can talk to it via the minicom terminal emulator, and by
>echoing txt to /dev/cua0.
>
>     As per other materials, I have added the following line to my
>/etc/inittab:
>        12:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty ttyS0 DT9600 vt100
>
[rest deleted]

------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"---
Ray Olszewski                                        -- Han Solo
762 Garland Drive
Palo Alto, CA  94303-3603
650.321.3561 voice     650.322.1209 fax          ray at comarre.com        
----------------------------------------------------------------


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