August 24, 1996 TTYACTION 3

### NAME

ttyaction - ttyaction utility function

### LIBRARY

System Utilities Library (libutil, -lutil)

### SYNOPSIS

```int` ttyaction(```char *ttyname``, char *action``, char *username`)

### DESCRIPTION

The ttyaction(``) function is used by login(1), getty(8), telnetd(8) and rlogind(8) to execute site-specific commands when a login session begins and ends.

The ttyaction(``) function scans the ```/etc/ttyaction` file for any records that match the current ```ttyname` and ```action` parameters, and for each matching record, runs the shell command shown in that record. The record format is described in ttyaction(5). The parameter ```username` is the name of the new owner of the ```ttyname` device. Note that the ```ttyname` parameter may be passed as a fully qualified pathname, and the ttyaction(``) function will skip the leading "/dev/" part of the string. (This is a convenience for login and getty.)

### RETURN VALUES

ttyaction(``) returns the status of the last command it executed, or zero if no matching commands were found.

### FILES

```/dev/*`
```/etc/ttyaction`

### SEE ALSO

ttyaction(5)

### AUTHORS

Gordon W. Ross
<gwr@NetBSD.org>, Chris G. Demetriou
<cgd@NetBSD.org>, Ty Sarna
<tsarna@endicor.com>.

### BUGS

There should be some other mechanism to allow selection of different access control policies on a per-line basis. It has been suggested that the same ttyaction mechanism should also be used for determining access control, but it was decided (after much discussion) that ttyaction should only describe actions to be performed after the system has decided to change the ownership of some tty. Access control policies will be handled by a separate mechanism.