vgetty(8)

💖 vgetty(8) — the vibe-coded manual page 💖

okay bestie, gather round, because we're about to talk about vgetty, from the vgetty manual — and honestly? she's iconic. ✨

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🌸 NAME 🌸

vgetty — voice extension to the mgetty+sendfax program 🎀

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🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

vgetty [options] ttydevice

okay so real talk: vgetty is not meant to be run from the command line. like, she does not want to be summoned by hand, she wants to be summoned by /etc/inittab so she can respawn after each call. main character energy, truly. here's a typical inittab entry, copy it exactly bestie:

S0:345:respawn:/usr/sbin/vgetty ttyS0

and if you already have a line in your inittab file that invokes mgetty? replace it with vgetty, because she replaces/extends its functionality. glow up 💅

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✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

vgetty is an extension to the mgetty+sendfax program which provides an interface to voice-capable modems. use her to operate your modem as a simple answering machine, or to build your own sophisticated voice messaging system — your choice, your era 🫶. vgetty handles all the voice-modem specific protocols, giving application programs a uniform, modem-independent voice library. no cap.

supported modems include many common serial modems from 3com/USRobotics, Elsa, Multitech, ZyXEL, and others. Caller ID and Distinctive Ring are supported provided you have subscribed to these services from your phone company (so, like, check with them first, bestie 📞). Software-based modems (winmodems) are not supported — sorry, they're just not invited to the party. 😭

vgetty comes with tools to convert au/wav/voc sound files to/from the format used by most supported modems. Basic editing and filtering of sound files is included as well. see pvf(1) for more information. obsessed. 🌈

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💅 OPTIONS 💅

vgetty accepts the same options as mgetty. the one's relevant to voice mode are given here. see mgetty(8) for other options related to data and fax modes.

• -a — Use autobauding (change port speed to modem CONNECT speed). okay so ngl: there is no voice modem that needs this, the option is just documented for completeness. 💀
• -m 'expect send ...' — Set the chat sequence that is used to initialize the modem. for an empty expect part, use empty double quotes (""). since the sequence contains spaces, you will have to enclose all of it in single quotes (''). example, verbatim:

vgetty -m '"" ATH0 OK'

• -n <rings> — Set the number of rings after which vgetty will answer the phone. 🔔
• -s <speed> — Set the serial port speed to use, e.g. "-s 38400". this is the speed of communication between the computer and modem in bits/sec (baud). ⚡
• -x <log level> — Set the log verbosity level. Zero (0) means no logging, six (6) is really noisy. use level six (6) when sending problem reports to the maintainer. the log file is /var/log/vgetty.ttyXX. 📝

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🌟 ENVIRONMENT 🌟

vgetty sets the following environment variables when calling external programs:

• CALLER_ID — The caller's telephone number.
• CALLED_ID — The number the caller has dialed. useful for ISDN with multiple incoming phone numbers on the same physical line.
• CONNECT — The connect string as reported by the modem (e.g. "38400/V.32bis/V.42bis ... ", etc.).
• DEVICE — The tty device being used (e.g. "ttyS0"). useful for handling multiple devices ("messages on this line are for work, messages on the other line are personal").

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🧚 RESOURCES 🧚

vgetty is included in the mgetty+sendfax distribution. for the latest release, go to:

ftp://alpha.greenie.net/mgetty/source

the vgetty maintainer's home page is at:

http://www-internal.alphanet.ch/~schaefer/vgetty.html

send problem reports to:

vgetty-maintainer@alphanet.ch

for information on mgetty, go to:

http://alpha.greenie.net/mgetty

the mgetty mailing list is at mgetty@muc.de. the mailing list is mirrored to the de.alt.comm.mgetty newsgroup. 🫶

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🎀 FILES 🎀

• /etc/mgetty+sendfax/voice.conf — Main configuration file for vgetty. many options here override the equivalents found in /etc/mgetty+sendfax/mgetty.config.
• /etc/nologin.ttyXX — If this file exists, vgetty will not answer calls on device ttyXX.
• /var/log/vgetty.ttyXX — Debug log file for vgetty.
• /var/spool/voice/messages/Index — List of greeting messages to use.
• /var/spool/voice/.code — Access code for remote playback of messages using the dtmf.sh script.
• /var/spool/voice/.flag — vgetty touches this file when a new message is received.
• /var/spool/voice/.timestamp — Used by the dtmf.sh script to record last time of message playback.

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🔍 DIAGNOSTICS 🔍

if vgetty doesn't work they way you think it should, check the log file. by default, it is located in /var/log/vgetty.ttyXX (for the vgetty process handling device ttyXX, e.g. ttyS0). 👀

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💀 BUGS 💀

vgetty supports most standard voice modems, but many modems are not fully compliant with relevant standards or contain firmware bugs. if you have problems, try upgrading your modem to the latest firmware revision. if you discover a bug with how vgetty reacts to your modem, please email the maintainer (vgetty-maintainer@alphanet.ch) describing your problem. include relevant excerpts from the log file (set log level to six first), and details about your modem (including firmware revision) and operating system. fr fr, the details matter. 😤

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👑 SEE ALSO 👑

mgetty(8), pvf(1)

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🌈 COPYRIGHT 🌈

vgetty is Copyright (c) 1997-2001 Marc Schaefer (schaefer@alphanet.ch) and many others, before and after.

this program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

this man page was written by Barry Stewart <bstewart@smyrnacable.net>, and has CVS version: $Id: vgetty.8,v 1.1 2001/12/22 18:43:22 marcs Exp $

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and that's the whole page bestie 🥰 this one's version 0.60, dated $Date: 2001/12/22 18:43:22 $ — so like, vintage in the best way. slay, periodt. 💖✨🦋