Re: open controlling terminal from cron

From: Chuck Dillon (cdillon_at_nimblegen.com)
Date: 09/08/03 

Date: Mon, 08 Sep 2003 09:02:33 -0500

Charles Carrano wrote:
> Is it possible to open a controlling terminal
> (for output only) via cron? I'd like to dedicate
> /dev/tty1, for example, on my linux (RH 9.0) box
> to the ncurses display of a program written in C
> that requires no user input. Is this possible?
>
> For the curious, my intention is to use the linux
> box as a real-time measurement/display system, where
> the console is dedicated to showing GPS measurements
> acquired from a receiver through the serial port.
>
> Thanks!

If you look at /etc/inittab you will probably see that it has entries
that cause getty/mingetty to run on the tty devices. These are just
little programs that wait for evidence that someone is trying to use
the tty and then exec login. When the user session ends the system
sees that the device is uncovered and spawns another getty/mingetty to
wait for another user to come along.

You can replace one of those entries with a call to your program (or a
wrapper that calls it). When you do you remove the getty/mingetty that
is getting in your way now and you get the system to make sure your
program is always running on that device.

Man init.d, inittab and mingetty

-- ced 

-- 
Chuck Dillon
Senior Software Engineer
NimbleGen Systems Inc.