10.1. Interactive Korn Shell

Before the Korn shell displays a prompt, it is preceded by a number of processes. See Figure 10.1.

Figure 10.1. System startup and the Korn shell.

10.1.1. Startup

The first process to run is called init, PID 1. It gets instructions from a file called inittab (System V) or spawns a getty (BSD) process. These processes open up the terminal ports, provide a place where input comes from, stdin, and the place where standard output (stdout) and standard error (stderr) go, and put a login prompt on your screen. The /bin/login program is then executed. The login program prompts you for a password, encrypts and verifies the ...

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