Multiple login windows on the 3b1

Andy S Poling andy at jhunix.HCF.JHU.EDU
Tue Apr 9 00:14:10 AEST 1991


In article <76 at morwyn.UUCP> forrie at morwyn.UUCP (Forrie Aldrich) writes:
>Just a comment on multiple login windows:
>
>when you screw with the inittab to get this to happen, the /etc/utmp
>info gets mangled.  How I know this is that I have a few applications
>such as 'SUDO' that will not recognize me as a valid user when I am
>running multiple login windows.

I have been running multiple logins on my 3b1 for over a year now.  I don't
use multiple getty entries in inittab though - I use my own home-brewed
"system manager" (replacing phmgr, smgr, and wmgr) which pops up login
windows on demand.

The basic problem is the same, however, regardless of how you go about
logging in multiple times.  Most of the software on the 3b1 is designed to
be used with the UA which always logs you in on window #1.  /bin/su is a
perfect example of this brokenness: no matter what window your are logged
into and who you are logged in as, su will log the su as being from whatever
user is logged into /dev/w1 and as being invoked in /dev/w1.  Blech.

I have learned to accept this fact and make sure my favorite account is logged
in on w1 so that most things work the way I would expect them to.

It's still broken behavior tho...

-Andy

--
Andy Poling                              Internet: andy at gollum.hcf.jhu.edu
UNIX Systems Programmer                  Bitnet: ANDY at JHUNIX
Homewood Academic Computing              Voice: (301)338-8096    
Johns Hopkins University                 UUCP: uunet!mimsy!aplcen!jhunix!andy



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