The System Startup Daemon: init
Pages: 1, 2

In order to understand this file, we must realize that there are three types of terminals on your FreeBSD system. Virtual terminals start with "ttyv" followed by a number or letter; these are the terminals available for users physically seated at the FreeBSD computer. By default, the first of these virtual terminals, or "ttyv0," represents the console. Serial or dial-up terminals start with "ttyd" followed by a number; these terminals are available for users accessing your FreeBSD system remotely, using a modem. The last type of terminal is a pseudo or network terminal; these start with "ttyp" followed by a number or a letter and are used to access your FreeBSD computer over a network connection.

If we look at this file using

more /etc/ttys

we'll see that this file has been divided into three sections, with a section for each of the three types of terminals. Each section also has four columns, which I've summarized in the following chart:

Column Name Previously in this series: Discovering System Processes Discovering System Processes Part II	What it Represents
name	The name of the terminal device.
getty	The program to start running on the terminal, which is typically getty. Other common entries include xdm, which starts the X Window System, or none, meaning no program.
type	For virtual consoles, the correct type is cons25. Other common values include network on pseudo-terminals, dialup for incoming modem ports, and unknown when the terminal type a user will try to connect with cannot be predetermined.
status	Must be on or off. If on, init will run the program specified in the getty column. If the word "secure" appears, this tty allows root login; to prevent root logins, use the word "insecure."

Let's start deciphering this file by looking at the virtual terminal section; note that it starts by setting up the console:

# If console is marked "insecure", then init will ask 
# for the root password when going to single-user mode.
console	none				unknown	off secure

If the fsck command runs into problems during bootup, init will put your FreeBSD system into single-user mode so the root user can fix the problem. If you set the console at insecure instead of the default secure, init will require the root password before you can continue.

ttyv0	"/usr/libexec/getty Pc"		cons25	on  secure
# Virtual terminals
ttyv1	"/usr/libexec/getty Pc"		cons25	on  secure
ttyv2	"/usr/libexec/getty Pc"		cons25	on  secure
ttyv3	"/usr/libexec/getty Pc"		cons25	on  secure
ttyv4	"/usr/libexec/getty Pc"		cons25	on  secure
ttyv5	"/usr/libexec/getty Pc"		cons25	on  secure
ttyv6	"/usr/libexec/getty Pc"		cons25	on  secure
ttyv7	"/usr/libexec/getty Pc"		cons25	on  secure
ttyv8	"/usr/X11R6/bin/xdm -nodaemon"	xterm	off secure

You'll note that on my FreeBSD system I have eight virtual terminals in addition to the console; I can access each by pressing ALT and one of the function keys. For example, ALT F1 accesses the console, ALT F2 accesses ttyv1, ALT F3 accesses ttyv2, etc. If I start an X session, it can be accessed by using ALT F8. If I were to change the word off to on at ttyv8, I would receive an X terminal instead of the console at boot time. I could still use my ALT function keys to access the other terminals. All of my virtual terminals are marked as "secure," meaning they will accept root logins. How many virtual terminals you have depends on your version of FreeBSD; if you wish to create more virtual terminals, you should read What is a virtual console and how do I make more?.

Now let's move on down to the dial-up terminals:

# Serial terminals
# The 'dialup' keyword identifies dialin lines to login, fingerd etc.
ttyd0	"/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"	dialup	off secure
ttyd1	"/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"	dialup	off secure
ttyd2	"/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"	dialup	off secure
ttyd3	"/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"	dialup	off secure

You'll notice that I have four available dial-up terminals, but they are all turned off. If I wanted users to access my FreeBSD computer using a modem, I'd have to turn at least one of these terminals on. I would also have to decide if I wanted these users to be able to log in as root; if not, I would change the word secure to insecure. You'll note that the getty column includes the number 9600, which represents a data transfer rate of 9600 bps. Since most modern modems are capable of higher rates, I would also probably change that number to 57600. And finally, I would read the section of the FreeBSD handbook that covers the dial-in service.

The last section in /etc/ttys is the network or pseudo terminal section. You'll note that there are a lot of these, 255 to be precise, that range from:

# Pseudo terminals
ttyp0   none         network

to

ttySv   none         network

and that none of them have been enabled by default.

If you ever become the superuser in order to make changes to /etc/ttys, you will have to remember to send a HUP signal to init so that it will use your changes. To do this, type:

kill -1 1

as -1 is signal 1 (HUP) and 1 is process 1 (init).

Now, what is this getty program that keeps being mentioned in /etc/ttys? The description in man 8 getty states it well:

DESCRIPTION

The getty program is called by init(8) to open and initialize the tty line, read a login name, and invoke login(1).

So, init reads /etc/ttys and starts a getty process on every terminal you've told it to in that configuration file. Monitoring that terminal to see if anyone tries to log in is getty's job. If someone does, getty will start the login program to verify that user's login name and password. If those check out, login will start up that user's login shell and place the user in their home directory. Once the user has a shell, or command interpreter, they now have a way of interacting with the operating system. It is now up to the shell to interpret a user's input and ensure that any necessary processes are started.

When a user logs out of their login shell, init is called in to start another getty process which will patiently monitor the terminal for another login attempt.

Let's tie together this whole process by looking at the output of the ps command on a freshly booted, default install of FreeBSD 4.1. I'll use the -ax switches to include the system daemons:

ps -ax
  PID  TT  STAT      TIME COMMAND
    0  ??  DLs    0:00.01  (swapper)
    1  ??  ILs    0:00.16 /sbin/init --
    2  ??  DL     0:00.02  (pagedaemon)
    3  ??  DL     0:00.00  (vmdaemon)
    4  ??  DL     0:00.02  (bufdaemon)
    5  ??  DL     0:01.02  (syncer)
 1056  ??  Is     0:00.00 adjkerntz -i
 1187  ??  Ss     0:00.08 syslogd -s
 1206  ??  Is     0:00.05 inetd -wW
 1208  ??  Is     0:00.11 cron
 1622  ??  Ss     0:00.02 sendmail: accepting connections on port 25 (sendmail)
 1621  v0  Ss     0:00.12 -csh (csh)
 1701  v0  R+     0:00.00 ps -ax
 1699  v1  Is+    0:00.01 /usr/libexec/getty Pc ttyv1
 1619  v2  Is+    0:00.01 /usr/libexec/getty Pc ttyv2
 1618  v3  Is+    0:00.01 /usr/libexec/getty Pc ttyv3
 1617  v4  Is+    0:00.01 /usr/libexec/getty Pc ttyv4
 1616  v5  Is+    0:00.01 /usr/libexec/getty Pc ttyv5
 1615  v6  Is+    0:00.01 /usr/libexec/getty Pc ttyv6
 1614  v7  Is+    0:00.01 /usr/libexec/getty Pc ttyv7

You should now be able to recognize most of these processes: swapper has a PID of 0 and init has a PID of 1. The adjkerntz, syslogd, inetd, cron, and sendmail processes were all successfully started by rc. I needed to run the ps command from a shell; in my case, it was from the c shell running on ttyv0. Getty processes are waiting for logins on virtual terminals 1-7. There is no getty process running on virtual terminal 8 as this terminal was marked "off" in /etc/ttys.

We've gone pretty deep into FreeBSD in this last set of articles. Next week, let's take a break from the heavy stuff and play with another utility from the ports collection.

Dru Lavigne is a network and systems administrator, IT instructor, author and international speaker. She has over a decade of experience administering and teaching Netware, Microsoft, Cisco, Checkpoint, SCO, Solaris, Linux, and BSD systems. A prolific author, she pens the popular FreeBSD Basics column for O'Reilly and is author of BSD Hacks and The Best of FreeBSD Basics.

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