Re: virtual consoles

[Mike McClain <mike.junk@nethere.com>]

Howdy,
On Thu, Oct 04, 2012 at 03:38:14PM +0100, Darac Marjal wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 04, 2012 at 07:08:49AM -0700, james gray wrote:
> >    Does any one know of - info source to set up virtual consoles in the
> >    network install of Debian Squeeze 6.0???
<snip>
>
> OK. You've been following a bit of a red-herring there, but that's only
> to be expected. Virtual Terminals, themselves are controlled by the
> kernel, but most relevant is the program that runs on the virtual
> terminal and asks for your login details. This is called a "getty" and
> is configured in /etc/inittab. You should see a series of lines such
> as:
>
> 1:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty1
> 2:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty2
> 3:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty3
> 4:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty4
> 5:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty5
> 6:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty6
>

In addition to the excellent advice Darac gave if you're runnung
without a GUi and don't want to have to login to each VT take a look
at openvt.
my /etc/inittab contains these lines:

#   one vt for root and one for mike.
1:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty1
4:23:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty4

# Action on special keypress (ALT-UpArrow).
# sudo needed unless NOPASSWD:ALL       in /etc/sudoers?
kb::kbrequest:$( [ "id -u" -eq 0 ] && /bin/openvt -su ||
    sudo /bin/openvt -su)

This line allows me to open vts with a single keystroke without logging in to each one.

HTH,
Mike
--
Satisfied user of Linux since 1997.
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