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From: brendan@illyria.wpd.sgi.com (Brendan Eich)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
Subject: Re: PI Problems
Summary: Xterm doesn't start a login shell
Keywords: cshrc /etc/motd /etc/cshrc xterm-logins
Message-ID: <51830@sgi.sgi.com>
Date: 26 Feb 90 23:42:42 GMT
References: <9002220905.aa28986@VAT.BRL.MIL> <51649@sgi.sgi.com> <2836@umbc3.UMBC.EDU>
Sender: brendan@illyria.wpd.sgi.com
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA
Lines: 19

In article <2836@umbc3.UMBC.EDU>, bernie@umbc3.UMBC.EDU (Bernard J. Duffy) writes:
> This isn't an SGI-only problem, I've noticed this with DEC's Ultrix as well,
> but had an easier time working the .cshrc since SGI's setup of the DISPLAY
> is a bit sloppy (sets DISPLAY even thought there's no Xterm... convience
> for the "console" user to run x programs while in wsh).
> There may be a solution to this, but I haven't accidently run acrossed it
> yet.

It seems xterm doesn't start a login shell (one with an initial "-" in
its argv[0] basename).  Only a login C-shell reads /etc/cshrc and .login,
similarly for sh and /etc/profile & .profile.  I don't know much about X;
perhaps there's an xterm option for logging in (creating a login shell,
updating /etc/utmp).

Sub-shells and "automatic" shells such as the remote half of rcp uses
are not login shells, and should not result in /etc/motd or unintended
noise on standard output.

Brendan