OPENVT(1)

💖 OPENVT(1) 💖

okay bestie so this is openvt from the General Commands Manual and it's genuinely one of those little tools that just does things. sit with me.

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✨ NAME ✨

openvt — start a program on a new virtual terminal (VT). that's it, that's the whole job, and she does it flawlessly 💅

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

openvt [-c vtnumber] [OPTIONS] [--] command

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so here's the vibe: openvt goes looking for the first available VT, and then runs the command you gave it on that VT — with whatever command options you passed along too. standard input, standard output and standard error all get pointed at that terminal. everything flows there. it's giving full immersion 🎀

to find the command you asked for, it uses the current search path, aka $PATH. and if you don't specify a command at all? no worries, she just uses the environment variable $SHELL. iconic behavior honestly.

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

• -c, --console=VTNUMBER — use this specific VT number instead of just grabbing the first available one. heads up though: you must have write access to the VT you're supplying or this is not gonna work, no cap.
• -f, --force — force open a VT without even checking whether it's already in use. living dangerously, love that for you 🔥
• -e, --exec — directly execute the given command, without forking. this one is meant for use in /etc/inittab.
• -s, --switch — switch over to the new VT when the command starts. the VT of the new command becomes the new current VT. main character energy, she takes the screen 👑
• -u, --user — figure out the owner of the current VT and run login as that user. suitable to be called by init. shouldn't be used with -c or -l. also: this option refuses to pre-authenticate root and requires a process owned by the VT owner whose controlling terminal is the current VT.
• -l, --login — make the command a login shell. a - gets prepended to the name of the command to be executed.
• -v, --verbose — be a bit more verbose. give us the tea ☕
• -w, --wait — wait for the command to complete. and if -w and -s are used together, openvt will switch back to the controlling terminal when the command completes. she comes back, she always comes back 🫶
• -V, --version — print program version and exit.
• -h, --help — show this text and exit.
• -- — end of options to openvt.

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⚠️ NOTE ⚠️

if openvt is compiled with a getopt_long() and you wanna set options for the command that's gonna be run, then you must supply the end-of-options -- flag before the command. no skipping this step bestie, the parser will simply not understand you.

the -u option uses login -f and therefore bypasses normal password authentication for the detected user. it is intended only for controlled init or keyboard-request configurations. use a normal authenticated login command when authentication is required. fr fr, don't get cute with this one 🙈

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🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

openvt can be used to start a shell on the next free VT, by using the command:

openvt bash

to start the shell as a login shell, use:

openvt -l bash

to get a long listing you must supply the -- separator:

openvt -- ls -l

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💜 HISTORY 💜

earlier, openvt was called open. it was written by Jon Tombs</> <jon@gtex02.us.es> or <jon@robots.ox.ac.uk>. and the -w idea is from "sam". a whole little origin story, we love a throwback 🧚

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🌟 SEE ALSO 🌟

chvt(1), deallocvt(1), vlock(1), login(1)

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kbd · 24 October 2024 · that's the whole page bestie, go open a terminal and slay 💖✨🎀