ttylogin service management via /etc/ttys

ttylogin services can of course be managed just like ordinary services, enabling them so that they auto-start at bootup and starting and stopping them with normal system-control commands. The preset command and the normal preset mechanisms can pre-set what services are enabled when they are installed, with (for example) lines in /etc/system-control/presets/60-ttys.preset saying:

enable ttylogin@ttyv1
enable cyclog@ttylogin@ttyv1

However, one might decide to retain the BSD /etc/ttys mechanism as the master settings list for all terminals. This is still done with the preset command, which can also use the on/off information for individual virtual terminals that is stored in /etc/ttys as an alternative source of preset information for enabling/disabling the matching ttylogin services.

In order to determine presets using /etc/ttys one runs two things:

  1. In order to first enable or disable the relevant ttylogin@ttyv{0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8}.service service one runs

    system-control preset --ttys --prefix ttylogin@ ttyv{0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8}
    system-control preset --ttys --prefix cyclog@ttylogin@ ttyv{0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8}

    This takes the preset information given in the matching ttyv{0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8} records in /etc/ttys and applies it to both the main login services and their associated logging services.

  2. In order to immediately start or stop the relevant service one also runs

    system-control reset ttylogin@ttyv{0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8}
    system-control reset cyclog@ttylogin@ttyv{0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8}

Note: This allows one to list both kernel and user-space virtual terminals in /etc/ttys, alongside one another.