osx man page for getty

GETTY(8)						    BSD System Manager's Manual 						  GETTY(8)

NAME
     getty -- set terminal mode

SYNOPSIS
     getty [type [tty]]

DESCRIPTION
     The getty utility is called by launchd(8) to open and initialize the tty line, read a login name, and invoke login(1).

     The argument tty is the special device file in /dev to open for the terminal (for example, ``ttyh0'').  If there is no argument or the argu-
     ment is '-', the tty line is assumed to be open as file descriptor 0.

     The type argument can be used to make getty treat the terminal line specially.  This argument is used as an index into the gettytab(5) data-
     base, to determine the characteristics of the line.  If there is no argument, or there is no such table, the default table is used.  If there
     is no /etc/gettytab a set of system defaults is used.  If indicated by the table located, getty will clear the terminal screen, print a ban-
     ner heading, and prompt for a login name.	Usually either the banner or the login prompt will include the system hostname.

     Most of the default actions of getty can be circumvented, or modified, by a suitable gettytab table.

     The getty utility can be set to timeout after some interval, which will cause dial up lines to hang up if the login name is not entered rea-
     sonably quickly.

FILES
     /etc/gettytab
     /etc/ttys

DIAGNOSTICS
     ttyxx: No such device or address.
     ttyxx: No such file or address.

     A terminal which is turned on in the ttys file cannot be opened, likely because the requisite lines are either not configured into the sys-
     tem, the associated device was not attached during boot-time system configuration, or the special file in /dev does not exist.

SEE ALSO
     login(1), ioctl(2), tty(4), gettytab(5), ttys(5), launchd(8)

HISTORY
     A getty utility appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX.

BSD
								   June 4, 1993 							       BSD