getty?getty is a program that handles the login process when you log
onto a Unix box. There are 3 versions that are commonly used
with Linux: agetty, getty_ps and mgetty.
getty_ps
This version of getty
was written by Paul Sutcliffe Jr., paul@devon.lns.pa.us.
Kris Gleason, gleasokr@boulder.colorado.edu currently
maintains it. 2.0.7e is the latest version, and supersedes any older
versions. Most distributions come with the getty_ps package
installed as /sbin/getty.
The getty_ps package contains two getties. getty is
used for console, and terminal devices - and uugetty which is
used for modems. I use this version of getty, so I will
focus on the getty_ps package in this HOWTO.
mgettymgetty is a version of getty written by Gert Doering
gert@greenie.muc.de. In addition to allowing logins,
mgetty also provides class 2 FAX support
through sendfax, which accompanies mgetty.
mgetty+sendfax 0.22 is the latest version of this package.
The mgetty documentation is quite good, and does not need
supplementing. Please refer to it for installation instructions.
agettyagetty is the third variation of getty. It was original
written by W.Z. Venema, wietse@wzv.win.tue.nl. It's a simple
implementation of getty.