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From: brsmith@cs.umn.edu (Brian R. Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Should login xterms show /etc/motd?
Message-ID: <1990Jul24.233015.25987@cs.umn.edu>
Date: 24 Jul 90 23:30:15 GMT
References: <1990Jul18.200754.13129@cs.umn.edu> <678@venice.SEDD.TRW.COM> <1990Jul20.180959.21846@cs.umn.edu> <5877@crltrx.crl.dec.com> <1990Jul23.201745.11646@cs.umn.edu> <37719@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Organization: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, CSci dept.
Lines: 30

edward@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Edward Wang) writes:

>In article <1990Jul23.201745.11646@cs.umn.edu> brsmith@cs.umn.edu (Brian R. Smith) writes:
>>Ok - so the best fix would be to:
>>  Have xterm NOT do the utmp/wtmp stuff.  (Quick Imakefile hack.)
>>  Have "login" xterms run "/bin/login -h $DISPLAY -fp $USER" as root.

I hate to sound like a complete moron... but after looking through the
xterm source, the solution gets even simpler.  "-DUSE_LOGIN_DASH_P" No
hacking necessary...  ["Use the Source, Luke."]

>Actually, even with the right version of login, this isn't a
>solution, because there's nobody to do the logout part of utmp and
>wtmp fixing.  Currently, this is done whatever programs that invoke
>login: init, rlogind, and so on.  (Brian: I know I suggested using
>login -f, but with a caution.)  The correct solution seems to be a
>server-based pty server.  There seem to be people working on this
>here at Berkeley.

Xterm can clean up the utmp/wtmp stuff - it already does.  I'll have
to hack it a little - to let /bin/login add the utmp/wtmp entries, but
remove them itself.  (Or maybe hack login to *not* add the utmp/wtmp
entries.)  It could work.

>The original Unix login design is outliving its usefulness.

Probably... but I'm not going to try to fix THAT myself...  :-)

Brian
brsmith@cs.umn.edu