Description

login-prompt is a chain-loading utility that prompts to standard output, waits for standard input to have data ready, flushes standard input, and then (if successful) chain load to next-prog with the execvp(3) function.

next-prog may contain its own command line options, which login-prompt will ignore.

This program is only necessary if next-prog has timeout functionality that cannot be switched off, as is the case for Linux /bin/login. login-prompt effectively delays running that program, and commencing the timeout, until the user has responded to a prompt. This prevents login processes from continually respawning on unused terminals.

login-prompt expects the terminal and the line discipline to be in relatively sane states. To reset to these states, run vc-reset-tty(1) or reset(1) before login-prompt.

Author

Jonathan de Boyne Pollard