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bambuntu
Asked: 2012-02-22 20:25:49 +0800 CST

Why is the Ubuntu Live User Signed Into All tty's?

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Ubuntu, out of the box, has the live user signed into all tty's.

What is the purpose of this?

Why can't I sign the user out of these tty's?

In a freshly installed Ubuntu environment, my user is not signed into all the tty's. Why?

If I do sign into a tty in the installed environment, I can sign out. How is this possible compared to the live situation?

Is it possible to disable tty's? If so, how?

live-cd

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    You can disabled TTY's by removing (or moving to something other than .conf) the following files:

    /etc/init/tty1.conf
/etc/init/tty2.conf
/etc/init/tty3.conf
/etc/init/tty4.conf
/etc/init/tty5.conf
/etc/init/tty6.conf

    I found the culprit to the auto-login: In the /etc/init/tty1.conf in the live session, there is this line:

    exec /bin/login -f ubuntu < /dev/tty1 > /dev/tty1 2>&1

    This makes /bin/login log in as "ubuntu" - which has no password set. So, if you want similar functionality, blank the password for an account and set it to log in as that account. Of course, this is generally not recommended unless you're in a live system as it leaves a gaping security hole (unless that user is severely limited).

    Also, every time that process it killed (i.e. via exit) it gets called again - which again logs in as the "ubuntu" account.

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