GETTY(8)

NAME
getty - system login banner

SYNOPSIS
getty [banner ...]

DESCRIPTION
Getty displays a system identification banner, reads a user name from standard input and executes login with that name as argument.

Getty uses its arguments separated by spaces as a login banner. The character sequences \n, \s and \t are printed as newline, space and tab. Any other \x prints that x. The character sequences %s, %n, etc. produce the same output as uname -s, uname -n, etc. The default banner is

    %s\s\sRelease\s%r\sVersion\s%v\n\n%n\slogin:\s

The only other useful functionality offered by getty is that it can be suspended by signal SIGUSR1 and restarted by SIGUSR2. This allows a program such as modem(1) to temporarily claim a dialin line for dialout.

SEE ALSO
modem(1), ttytab(5), init(8).

BUGS
Getty should be taught about modems and modem lines. The signal trick is an awful hack.

AUTHOR
Kees J. Bot (kjb@cs.vu.nl)