Can I autoboot my xenix application?

[Dale Niedzielski]

In article <260 at tnl.UUCP> neverisk at tnl.UUCP (neverisky michael) writes:
>I have an SCO Xenix 2.3.2 application which I would like to autoboot
>at power up.  However, it seems that before I ever get a chance to 
>run any shell script I must 1) type RETURN at the boot: prompt 2) enter
>su password or Ctl-D for normal startup and 3) confirm the date!  Can
>all this nonsense be cicumvented?
>
>
>Mike Neverisky
>philabs!trintex!neverisk

   It is possible (and easy) to auto boot your application.  First, you
need to root permissions.  Second, edit the file /etc/rc.  This is the
startup script.  Near the bottom you'll find an area reserved for this
purpose.  Note that this is used to lauch backround processes - not
processes/applications associated with a terminal. 
   For terminal/user autobooting applications, simply write a small 
shell script to launch the application and edit /etc/passwd as follows:
   - Find the login id of the account/user id you wish to assign a
     specific application.
   - At the end of that line is the "shell" that executes when the user
     logs in.  Replace that shell path with the path to your script/
     main application executable (perhaps a menu).  Do this for each
     of the accounts requiring the application (or, as I have done,
     create a common account for each application).
   - If you wish to remove the password for the account so the user need
     only enter the account name during login, delete the encrypted 
     "password" between the first and second colons (':') following the
     account name.  This, however, is not recommended and should only
     be done if the application is secure and/or password protected.

   In answer to your first note, there is an autoboot flag you can
set so that the machine will boot after approximately 1 minute.  This
is a nice feature, especially in an unattended environment where
power fails are possible.  After the autoboot, the console and any 
serial terminals will have the login prompt and the file /usr/adm/messages
will contain statistics of the boot (ie file system check, etc).

   Hope this is what you are looking for ...

                                      Dale
				      [d.n.]