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From: paul@actrix.co.nz (Paul Gillingwater)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc
Subject: Re: Login vs. typeahead
Message-ID: <1990Nov17.234908.16658@actrix.co.nz>
Date: 17 Nov 90 23:49:08 GMT
References: <1990Nov13.233329.8736@athena.mit.edu> <5798@stpstn.UUCP> <1990Nov17.050402.470@smsc.sony.com>
Organization: Actrix Information Exchange, Wellington, New Zealand
Lines: 21

I waited several days in case someone else pointed this out, but
nobody did, so here goes.

The original message content indicated that it was a problem for
users that they would start typing in their password too soon after
their login name.  To me, this implies a performance problem.
Remember, the 

login:

prompt comes from the getty.  When the getty returns from its read
with the login name, it invokes the login program with the user name
as a parameter.  What I think is happening is that the login program
is taking at least a second or two to respond, because it has to be
loaded off disk.  Setting the sticky bit on login might help
(although most UNIX will only keep it on swap, rather than locked in
core).  Another kludgey solution might be to start a daemon that
keeps login in core, by feeding it input.  This will save
considerably on the startup time.
-- 
Paul Gillingwater, paul@actrix.co.nz