Linux – Display menu instead of login prompt on Linux

bashdebianlinuxUbuntu

After starting up a linux server (mostly Ubuntu or Debian based), I see a login prompt on the local console.

To enable end users to restart such a server or start some maintenance tasks, I would like to display a menu instead of a login prompt.

How can I do that?

Best Answer

Autologin a user with mingetty. Link

Autorun a bash script that contains the menu. Link

Logout user when exiting from bash script. Link

In regards to the comments about the SSH, in our case we have a handful of Raspberry Pis that serve only to run a script when a doctor connects their dictation device via USB. Another script automatically copies the files from the USB device to our dictation server for transcription. The console script is to allow them to see feedback as to if all their jobs were successfully copied AND be able to select from a menu to pull up their "job history".

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Debian 5 Display resolution out of range

X11/Xorg are hard to deal with at the best of times.

Now there are a couple things you can do. One would be to familiarize yourself with the Xorg and write a new config by hand. It may not sound like much fun, but you'll be better able to handle such issues in the future.

Another option is to let dpkg re-create the default config for you. You can do this by running:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

If that doesn't work out the way you'd hoped and you have the nvidia proprietary drivers installed, you should be able to have them create a more better config that takes full advantage of your video card. The command for that is:

sudo nvidia-xconfig

Now remember, in order to see any changes, you are going to have to restart Xorg. Depending on your distro and version, you can do this by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Backspace, but you'll have a guaranteed restart of Xorg by logging out. If you're level of FUD is high enough, just restart.

Good luck and I hope this helps.

PS- I recently helped my brother with this same problem. Here are some sample configs should you decide to hand-write/edit your config: sample1 sample2

Linux closing connection after successful login

There are a couple of similar posts suggesting that this could be a problem with spawning a shell because of incorrect settings for the shell path in /etc/passwd

To check this, determine that your user shell path exists and is executable;

# cat /etc/passwd | grep tomh
tomh:x:1000:1000:Tom H:/home/tomh:/bin/bash <-- check this exists

Check shell exists:

# file /bin/bash
/bin/bash: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.32, stripped

also, check that the shell is not set to either /sbin/nologin or /bin/false, which would also block login, even with a successful authentication.

http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/ubuntu-linux/173779-solved-ssh-issue.html
http://www.unix.com/hp-ux/169496-solved-ssh-debug1-exit-status-254-problem.html
http://www.mail-archive.com/seawolf-list@redhat.com/msg04460.html

Best Answer

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Debian 5 Display resolution out of range

Linux closing connection after successful login

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