login-prompt 1 user commands nosh
login-prompt simple chain-load getty for prompting before login
`login-prompt` next-prog

## Description

`login-prompt` is a chain-loading utility that prompts to standard output, waits for standard input to have data ready, flushes standard input with the tcflush 3 function, and then (if successful) chain loads to next-prog with the execvp 3 function.

next-prog may contain its own command line options, which `login-prompt` will ignore.

This program is primarily used in TTY login services, but is only necessary therein if next-prog has timeout functionality that cannot be switched off, as is the case for FreeBSD `/usr/bin/login`. `login-prompt` effectively delays running that program, and commencing the timeout, until the user has responded to a prompt. This prevents login processes that timeout from continually respawning on unused terminals.

This can be used as a means to defer running a login program until a user has actually presssed Enter on a terminal.

`login-prompt` expects the terminal and the line discipline to be in relatively sane states. To reset to these states, run vc-reset-terminal 1 or reset 1 before `login-prompt`.

## Author

Jonathan de Boyne Pollard