Hmmmm ... I haven't actually done everything you want to do, but it all
sounds doable. Below are suggestiona about what to try. No guarantees on
this, though ... try it on an experimental system first.
At 03:41 PM 1/20/00 +0000, Rogers, Paul wrote:
>I have a server which I am required to put in our computer room. To
>prevent others playing with it I wish to lock the console. I thought
>either
>
>start X with a blank screen screensaver
This is easy - screensavers will happily do this for you. The problem is
that (in my experience, at least) they invariably restore the screen at the
first input (keypress or mouse movement).
>or type exit to leave console at login prompt
I don't understand this. The "login prompt" will interpret "exit" as a
userid and prompt you for its password.
Why not just not run X and leave the standard "login:" prompt? Or modify
/etc/inittab so one of the vt's doesn't run login, and leave the machine set
to that vt? I must be missing something, I suppose involving the "politics"
you allude to below.
>Ideally, because of the politics round here, I'd like to have the machine
>present a blank screen until AFTER the password is entered, and also to
>trap the three finger salute.
On the console, I suppose you could modify the login process itself so it
didn't offer "login:" and "password:". I doubt you could as easily suppress
the cursor itself and echoing characters that you type, but that depends on
the details of the source for "mgetty" (or whichever *getty* you run) and
"login", which I haven't looked at.
>
>1. Is it possible to disable and/or trap the <CTRL><Alt><DEL>
>combination,such that the only way to shutdown is "shutdown -h" etc?
Yes. Linux DOES trap it now. The setting is in /etc/inittab on a line you
can find with the search string "ctrlaltdel". Just change the command at the
end of the line to something harmless.
>
>2. If X is running (with no applications and a blank screensaver) does
>this put much overhead on the machine?
Not much CPU overhead. It will still use whatever memory the basic X server,
the window manager, and the screensaver use. The screensaver will use some
cycles, but probably not much if it doesn't have to animate anything.
[rest deleted - general answer is "I don't know"]
------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"---
Ray Olszewski -- Han Solo
Palo Alto, CA [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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