Linux as a dumb terminal?

[A. Daniel King_1]

Hi, folks.

"How does one set up Linux as a dumb terminal?"

This is a little generic, and I find plenty of information on minicom, etc. and null-modem cables. However, I would like to set up (say in inittab) like:

6:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty6

as minicom (or other terminal) which directly connects as a dumb terminal.

I'm also up for suggestions as to the best terminal emulator for this type of situation.

Ultimately, I'd like to use a single Linux box (with several serial ports) as a head for several headless workstations, with ALT-F1 being the first, ALT-F2 the second, etc.

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated!

[Michael Steele_2]

The guidelines for setting up a dumb terminal in Linux are the same on any RS 232 serial line connnection, transmit the baud rate and flow control and have a device on the destination end receiving at the same settings.

Besides mingetty there is getty and agetty supported in Linux, and others, and, they all vary greatly. For example, here is an inittab entry for agetty with a baud rate of 38400 pointing to device tty1:

c1:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty1

Note: That there has to be a device like device tty1 to point to.

Also refer to tset, setterm, stty, setserial and setup commands.

[Goran Koruga]

Try this :

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Remote-Serial-Console-HOWTO/

HTH,
Goran

[Goran Koruga]

I just read the last part of your post again. We've tried a console concentrator at work, and it worked great.

I say go and test it if you have a multi-port card - we only had it for a week otherwise we would use that setup to access other machines via serial console.

Pay a visit to the site :

http://www.jfc.org.uk/software/conc.html

Goran

[A. Daniel King_1]

Thanks for the replies, folks.

However, this is less about getty than it is about Linux virtual terminals: ALT-F1, ALT-F2, ALT-F3, etc.

How does one run a program on a console without getty? I mentioned minicom since this could be used to set up a linux host as a dumb terminal for a rack of servers.

However, I could just as well have referenced, oh, say lynx. Say I want to run lynx on a virtual terminal with no password. Just walk up and you've got lynx on ALT-F3.

How?

[Stuart Browne · Accepted solution]

1:2345:respawn:/path/to/program < /dev/tty1 > /dev/tty1

should attach 'program' to tty1.

[A. Daniel King_1]

Stuart,

Simple. It should have occurred to me. It works like a charm. Thank you!

[Stuart Browne]

Most things in Linux are simple :) It's one of it's beauties.

Glad it worked out for you.