Disable >console login mode in Jaguar

Jan 14, '03 09:47:42AM

Contributed by: bmcgill

While trying to find a way to disable the >console login feature, I found what seems to be an old tip (different site). That tip being, you could disable the >console login by adding a user named ">console" with a secure password.

Sounded good, but doesn't seem to work in Jaguar. However, after tooling around, I found an easier way (which works) to disable the >console login feature. In your favorite text editor (emacs of course), edit the following line in /etc/ttys:

 console "/System/Lib...#onoption="/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"
[NOTE: The line is much longer than shown here; trimmed for readability. It's line nine in the /etc/ttys file]

The only thing you'll be adding is the hash before the onoption command. Save. Reboot.

[Editor's note: I have no idea if disabling >console is a good idea or not; it seems it leaves single user mode intact for troubleshooting, but I am not going to test this one on my machine. Comments, anyone?]

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