source: postlfs/config/logon.xml@ 7fe845a4

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
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   "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.4/docbookx.dtd" [
  <!ENTITY % general-entities SYSTEM "../../general.ent">
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<sect1 id="postlfs-config-logon" xreflabel="Customizing your Logon with /etc/issue">
  <?dbhtml filename="logon.html"?>

  <sect1info>
    <othername>$LastChangedBy$</othername>
    <date>$Date$</date>
  </sect1info>

  <title>Customizing your Logon with /etc/issue</title>

  <indexterm zone="postlfs-config-logon">
    <primary sortas="e-etc-issue">/etc/issue</primary>
  </indexterm>

  <para>When you first boot up your new LFS system, the logon screen will 
  be nice and plain (as it should be in a bare-bones system).  Many people 
  however, will want their system to display some information in the logon 
  message.  This can be accomplished using the 
  file <filename>/etc/issue</filename>.</para>

  <para>The <filename>/etc/issue</filename> file is a plain text file
  which will also accept certain Escape sequences (see below) in order to
  insert information about the system.  There is also the file
  <filename>issue.net</filename> which can be used when logging on remotely.  
  <command>ssh</command> however, will only use it if you set the option in the 
  configuration file and will also <emphasis>not</emphasis> interpret the 
  escape sequences shown below.</para>

  <para>One of the most common things which people want to do is to clear
  the screen at each logon.  The easiest way of doing that is to put a "clear" 
  escape-sequence into <filename>/etc/issue</filename>.  A simple way of 
  doing this is to do <command>clear &gt; /etc/issue</command>.  
  This will insert the relevant escape code into the start of the
  <filename>/etc/issue</filename> file.  Note that if you do this, when you 
  edit the file, you should leave the ^[c character on the first line alone.</para>

  <para>The following escapes are recognized by <command>agetty</command>
  (the program which usually parses <filename>/etc/issue</filename>).  This 
  information is from <command>man agetty</command> where you can find 
  extra information about the logon process.</para>

  <para>The <filename>issue</filename> file can contain certain escape codes to 
  display various information.  All escape codes consist of a backslash (\) 
  immediately followed by one of the letters explained below (so 
  <option>\d</option> in <filename>/etc/issue</filename> would 
  insert the current date).</para>

<screen><literal>b   Insert the baudrate of the current line.
d   Insert the current date.
s   Insert the system name, the name of the operating system.
l   Insert the name of the current tty line.
m   Insert the architecture identifier of the machine, e.g., i486
n   Insert the nodename of the machine, also known as the hostname.
o   Insert the domainname of the machine.
r   Insert the release number of the kernel, e.g., 2.4.16.
t   Insert the current time.
u   Insert the number of current users logged in.
U   Insert the string "1 user" or "&lt;n&gt; users" where &lt;n&gt; is the
    number of current users logged in.
v   Insert the version of the OS, e.g., the build-date etc.</literal></screen>

</sect1>