Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cwjcc!hal!ncoast!allbery From: allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: Selectively disable login at specified line? Message-ID: <12838@ncoast.UUCP> Date: 17 Oct 88 21:43:53 GMT References: <1227@tuhold> <3818@encore.UUCP> <105@minya.UUCP> Reply-To: allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery) Followup-To: comp.unix.wizards Organization: Cleveland Public Access UN*X, Cleveland, Oh Lines: 34 As quoted from <105@minya.UUCP> by jc@minya.UUCP (John Chambers): +--------------- | with a new one when I'm convinced it is working there. Why doesn't the | whole world just adopt the /etc/inittab version of init? Oh, yes, there | is the question of the source license...perhaps I'll try my hand at writing | that and putting it in the public domain next. On the other hand, maybe | I won't find the time. Any takers? +--------------- I have no doubt that I could clone System V's /etc/init. The problem is that in various versions of Unix, functionality has drifted around between init and getty; and both impact the structure and/or ordering of /etc/utmp, which can break login and any program which uses getlogin(). (I know, I tried to install a System V getty with the utmp routines changed to write System III-compatible utmp records; and login immediately broke with "No utmp entry".) Thus, to replace /etc/init you must at minimum replace /etc/getty, and you must either know the format *and* *ordering* of /etc/utmp -or- be able to recompile most of the user-level programs on the system. (And if you can do the latter you'd have no trouble doing the former.) BTW, does anyone know how System III decides which records in /etc/utmp are for which /dev/tty* devices? I still want to replace the getty on here, since we are going to need a uugetty-clone here pretty soon... (Suggestions to upgrade our O/S may be sent to /dev/null. It's not an option.) ++Brandon -- Brandon S. Allbery, comp.sources.misc moderator and one admin of ncoast PA UN*X uunet!hal.cwru.edu!ncoast!allbery ncoast!allbery@hal.cwru.edu allbery@skybridge.sdi.cwru.edu allbery@uunet.uu.net comp.sources.misc is moving off ncoast -- please do NOT send submissions direct (But the aliases are NOT on UUNET yet, use the aliases at backbone sites!)