fields, separated by colons. The first field is an identifier that uniquely labels an entry in the file; traditionally it is two characters, but modern versions allow four. The second field is the list of run levels at which this entry should be active. A run level is a means of providing alternate machine configurations and is implemented using trees of startup scripts stored in directories called /etc/rc1.d , /etc/rc2.d , etc. This feature is typically implemented very simply, and you should model your entries on others in the file or refer to your system documentation for more information. The third field describes when to take action. For the purposes of running a getty program, this field should be set to respawn , meaning that the command should be re-executed automatically when it dies. There are several other options, as well, but they are not useful for our purposes here. The fourth field is the actual command to execute; this is where we specify the mgetty command and any arguments we wish to pass it. In our simple example we're starting and restarting mgetty whenever the system is operating at either of run levels two or three, and are supplying as an argument just the name of the device we wish it to use. The mgetty command assumes the /dev/ , so we don't need to supply it.

This chapter was a quick introduction to mgetty and how to offer login prompts to serial devices. You can find more extensive information in the Serial-HOWTO.

After you've edited the configuration files, you need to reload init to make the changes take effect. Simply send a hangup signal to the init process; it always has a process ID of one, so you can use the following command safely:

   

# kill -HUP 1

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