Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!oliveb!pyramid!ctnews!starfish!dick
From: dick@starfish.Convergent.COM (Dick Hacking)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.xenix.sco
Subject: Re: XENIX Modem in Single-user mode
Keywords: XENIX
Message-ID: <1799@starfish.Convergent.COM>
Date: 13 Oct 90 00:25:16 GMT
References: <106@mq.com>
Organization: Unisys/Convergent, San Jose, CA
Lines: 25

In <106@mq.com> alan@mq.com (Alan H. Mintz) writes:

>System: SCO XENIX 386GT 2.3.2

>Is there anyway I can get a getty to run on the modem port while the system
>is in single-user mode ?  Walking the customer through commenting out 
>each rc.d/* entry to find the problem will be a nightmare. Dialing in 
>and looking at it myself would be much easier.

Single user mode does not mean single process mode. Single user is only an
arbitrary restriction placed on the machine by the contents of /etc/inittab.
Therefore you can start up a new process with a command that looks exacly
the same as the getty commands in /etc/inittab to get more gettys
going (pun not intended :-)
 
If your novice user starts this getty process in the background
they will still have control over the system.

I frequently use this mechanism to debug machines. The only caveat
is that the extra getty process has to be re-started by the on-site
console user if your modem link goes down. They could add another
line to /etc/inittab for single user mode so that the getty will
respawn as necessary. 

Dick Hacking