vtgetty(1M)

vtgetty -- set terminal type, modes, speed, and line discipline

Synopsis

/etc/vtgetty [-h] [-t timeout] line [speed[type [linedisc]]]

Description

The vtgetty command is invoked by init(1M). It is the second process in the series (init-vtgetty-getty-login-shell) that passes its arguments and executes /etc/getty. The /etc/getty process will eventually connect a user with the UNIX system. vtgetty can be executed only by a user with appropriate privilege (a process with the user-ID of root).

The command options are identical to those of getty(1M).

Initially, vtgetty opens the device and determines if any virtual terminals (vts) are open for that device. If there are active vts, the user will be prompted to determine if the vts should be closed automatically or manually when the user logs out. If the automatic option is selected, vtgetty will send the signals, SIGHUP and SIGTERM, to each open vt. It will then wait 2 seconds and send a SIGKILL signal to the vts to ensure that all the vts are terminated.

If the manual closure option is selected, the highest numbered vt will be activated and the user can manually close the vt. This will be repeated until all open vts are manually closed.

Files

/etc/ttydefs

Diagnostics

vtgetty fails under the following conditions:

There is no memory available.
It cannot open the device it was given.
It cannot convert from a file descriptor to a file pointer.
It cannot get the file status (stat(2)) of the device it was given.
An ioctl(2) call fails.

References

getty(1M), ttydefs(4), init(1M), inittab(4), ioctl(2), kill(1), stat(2), tty(1)