getty and login
Runlevels mentioned getty, a program that attaches to terminals and displays a login prompt. On most Linux systems, getty is uncomplicated because the system only uses it for logins on virtual terminals, with lines in /etc/inittab like this one for /dev/tty1:
1:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty1
In this example, 38400 is the baud rate. Virtual terminals ignore the baud rate; it's only there for backward compatibility with terminals connected to real serial lines. Some getty programs (like the mingetty that Red Hat Linux uses for virtual terminals) don't need the baud rate setting.
You are probably most interested in the name of the file that getty prints as the login greeting: /etc/issue. This is a quick and satisfying way to deface ...
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