TTYACTION(5) | File Formats Manual | TTYACTION(5)

# NAME

`ttyaction` — ttyaction file format

# DESCRIPTION

The `ttyaction` file specifies site-specific commands to run when a login session begins and ends. The `ttyaction` file contains a list of newline separated records, where each record has the following three fields:

ttyname
  Name of the tty line(s) on which this line should apply. The name is relative to the /dev directory, similar to how such devices are named in the /etc/ttys file.
action
  Name of the action for which this line should apply. The action names currently defined are "login", "getty", "telnetd" and "rlogind" which indicate which program is processing this file. (Note that "login" begins a login session, while the other three are run after a login session ends.)
command
  What command to run if this record matches.

The first two fields are delimited with blanks or tabs, and the command field is all text to the end of the line. Either or both of first two fields may contain wildcard match patterns as implemented by the fnmatch(3) library function.

All command strings are executed by passing them to /bin/sh -c running as "root," with an environment containing:

    TTY=ttyname
    ACT=action
    USER=username
    PATH=_PATH_STDPATH

These variables may be used directly in the shell command part of the record for simple tasks such as changing the ownership of related devices. For example:

    console  *	chown ${USER}:tty /dev/mouse

will chown the mouse appropriately when the console owner changes.

# EXAMPLES

Here are some more example records:

    tty0	login	/somewhere/tty_setup ${TTY}
    tty0	getty	/somewhere/tty_clean ${TTY}
    *	*	/somewhere/ttyfrob ${TTY} ${ACT}

# SEE ALSO

fnmatch(3), ttyaction(3)

# HISTORY

Support for the /etc/ttyaction file first appeared in NetBSD 1.3. The ideas for the /etc/ttyaction file were inspired by the /etc/fbtab file under SunOS.

August 24, 1996 | NetBSD 11.99