<HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >mingetty</TITLE ><META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.7"><LINK REL="HOME" TITLE="Remote Serial Console HOWTO" HREF="index.html"><LINK REL="UP" TITLE="Configure getty" HREF="getty.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="mgetty" HREF="getty-mgetty.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="No getty" HREF="getty-none.html"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="SECTION" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#840084" ALINK="#0000FF" ><DIV CLASS="NAVHEADER" ><TABLE SUMMARY="Header navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TH COLSPAN="3" ALIGN="center" >Remote Serial Console HOWTO</TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="getty-mgetty.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="80%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" >Chapter 6. Configure <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >getty</SPAN ></TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="getty-none.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><DIV CLASS="SECTION" ><H1 CLASS="SECTION" ><A NAME="GETTY-MINGETTY" ></A >6.5. <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >mingetty</SPAN ></H1 ><P ><SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >mingetty</SPAN > is designed to be a minimal <SPAN CLASS="APPLICATION" >getty</SPAN > for the virtual terminals on the the workstation's monitor and keyboard. It has no support for serial lines.</P ><P >You must not use <SPAN CLASS="APPLICATION" >mingetty</SPAN > for the serial line in <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >/etc/inittab</TT >, but the current <SPAN CLASS="APPLICATION" >mingetty</SPAN > entries for the virtual terminals can remain.</P ><P >Each virtual terminal uses about 8<SPAN CLASS="ACRONYM" >KB</SPAN > of kernel memory. If this matters, it is easy to allocate fewer virtual terminals. In the <SPAN CLASS="SYSTEMITEM" >Linux</SPAN > 2.4 kernel virtual terminals are created on demand, so not starting <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >mingetty</SPAN > on the virtual terminal will not create the virtual terminal. If the machine does not have a video card then remove all the <SPAN CLASS="APPLICATION" >mingetty</SPAN > entries from <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >/etc/inittab</TT >.</P ><DIV CLASS="FIGURE" ><A NAME="GETTY-MINGETTY-INITTAB" ></A ><P ><B >Figure 6-9. Fewer virtual terminals. Removing <SPAN CLASS="APPLICATION" >mingetty</SPAN > entries from <TT CLASS="FILENAME" >/etc/inittab</TT ></B ></P ><TABLE BORDER="0" BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" WIDTH="100%" ><TR ><TD ><FONT COLOR="#000000" ><PRE CLASS="PROGRAMLISTING" >1:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty1 # Additional virtual terminals are not used 2:2345:off:/sbin/mingetty tty2 3:2345:off:/sbin/mingetty tty3 4:2345:off:/sbin/mingetty tty4 5:2345:off:/sbin/mingetty tty5 6:2345:off:/sbin/mingetty tty6</PRE ></FONT ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ><P >After restarting <SPAN CLASS="APPLICATION" >init</SPAN > it would be wise to remove the unused device files.</P ><DIV CLASS="FIGURE" ><A NAME="GETTY-MINGETTY-DEVTTY" ></A ><P ><B >Figure 6-10. Fewer virtual terminals. Deallocating unused virtual terminals and removing their device files.</B ></P ><TABLE BORDER="1" BGCOLOR="#E0E0E0" WIDTH="100%" ><TR ><TD ><FONT COLOR="#000000" ><PRE CLASS="SCREEN" ><TT CLASS="PROMPT" >bash#</TT > <B CLASS="COMMAND" >telinit q</B > <TT CLASS="PROMPT" >bash#</TT > <B CLASS="COMMAND" >deallocvt /dev/tty[2-9] /dev/tty[0-9][0-9]</B > <TT CLASS="PROMPT" >bash#</TT > <B CLASS="COMMAND" >rm /dev/tty[2-9] /dev/tty[0-9][0-9]</B > </PRE ></FONT ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE SUMMARY="Footer navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="getty-mgetty.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="index.html" ACCESSKEY="H" >Home</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="getty-none.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >mgetty</SPAN ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="getty.html" ACCESSKEY="U" >Up</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >No <SPAN CLASS="PRODUCTNAME" >getty</SPAN ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >