Login Menu

[Malcolm McKenzie]

What is the best way to set up a user that on login has a menu displayed to select a home directory and/or a set of different environment variables?

[Patrick Wallek]

A couple of ways to do that.

1) You can set their default shell in /etc/passwd so that it points to the menu script and then the menu invokes applications or a shell as needed.

2) You can have the menu script execute as the last in the users .profile file.

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Malcolm:

There are two easy ways:

Choice-1 is to place the name of the menu script at the end of the user's profile, as:

# exec $HOME/usermenu.sh

Choice-2 is to substitute the menuscript for the normal shell as specified in '/etc/passwd'. That is, instead of the login shell (field-7), substitute the absolute path to the user's menu script:

# /home/theuse/usermenu.sh

Regards!

...JRF...

[PIYUSH D. PATEL]

Hi,

Put the menu script in /etc/passwd file intead of the user shell OR put the entry at the end in the .pfofile file of the user.

Piyush

[Dave La Mar]

Malcom -
We did something similar for a user id we wished to have access to only select items.
The call of the menu was placed in their .kshrc file as well as a source in of a file containing the necessary environment variables they would need.
Most important was the exit that would occur if the user exits the menu.
Below are the excerpts -

# environment variables needed.
./opt/apps/jobprod/config/jdaprod.env
# call the menu. ./opt/apps/jobprod/interface/jdaodbms/menu_name_script
# exit if they leave the menu.
exit

[Malcolm McKenzie]

Thanks for the responses. I've tried both methods, I've set a menu which points a user to different directories depending on their input. However, when the menu input is complete the user is disconnected from the session.

[Nick Wickens]

Have you considered setting up an alternate profile with the environment settings you want and calling the alternate profile via an alias in the main profile ? Then just print a menu upon initial login to remind the user which alias command to use to run the alternate profile ?