a couple of login tips

[Cheryl Homiak]

Here are a couple of login tips--one from a problem I brought up with
debian unstable a couple of months ago, and the other from a question
about automatic login that I can't find, either because it's in one of the
months that didn't make the archives or because I'm mixed up and it was
really a question on blinux.

If you are using debian unstable and still being driven crazy by getting
the "respawning too fast; disabled for 5 minutes" when you log out, the
util-linux package from testing doesn't have this problem and, for the
time being anyway, still appears to be compatible with unstable.

As for autologin, it is possible to do this with mingetty. If you are
already using mingetty, it appears that all you need do is add --autologin
username (the username of course being your own--NOT root) to your tty1
line in /etc/inittab. It's my understanding that mingetty will do this
with only one tty, so you can weigh the security risks and decide whether
or not you want to do it. It does, however, work.
As for people who do not have mingetty already in use (debian users
don't), you have to edit your /etc/inittab. Change "getty 38400" for
each tty entry to
"mingetty" (without the quotes); note that you remove the 38400. After the
tty indicator, put an intervening space and your switches: --noclear if
you don't want the screen
cleared before the login prompt and --autologin username (your own
username, NOT root) after tty1. I haven't determined whether this works
with the buggy unstable util-linux, but it's fine with the testing
util-linux package.
It seems to me that the person asking about this might have wanted to do
an autologin on more than one console, maybe some with root and some with
the ordinary user; I don't remember the details of the post, and I would
imagine this kind of setup, if possible, could be a bigger potential
security problem.
Hope this is of interest to somebody, and hope I'm not sending it to the
wrong list.


-- 
Cheryl
"Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."