dynamic VT code

Matt Hawkins (matt@blitzen.canberra.edu.au)
Fri, 04 Apr 1997 07:05:46 +1000

I had this thought while browsing through the 2.1.31 patches.. I know
it's not new and there are userspace programs around that perform similar
functions, but anyway it'd be nice to have the virtual terminals auto-
matically spawn a getty/login process if one doesn't exist on it when
switched to. (Yes, I'm lazy and don't want 64 getty processes hanging
around doing nothing apart from taking up space in /etc/inittab and the
process table)
Again, I recall a program called dynamic-vc or something similar which
I found a year or two ago on sunsite.. does that even work with the
new kernels? It included a small kernel patch and a daemon that would
respond to kernel requests of a vt switch - I think it'd be fairly
trivial to just stick the whole thing into the vt code.
Now, on my system at least, pressing Alt-RightArrow will cycle to the next
vt - should this spawn a new session (which would then involve "reaping"
idle login processes on these ttys) or should it just cycle through the
currently _active_ vt's?
Is this function even wanted in the kernel, or would it be better left to
a userspace program?

-- Matt