Arch Linux

eskay

Member

Registered: 2008-04-23

Posts: 23

Configuring virtual terminals

Hi there

Sorry if this isn't the correct terminology. I've seen someone on Gentoo where when they go to terminal 12 (Ctrl + Alt + F12) it shows them what is currently running in /var/log/messages and I thought that I'd like to try and get this working on my Arch system.

Any tips?

Thanks
eskay

skymt

Member

Registered: 2006-11-27

Posts: 443

Re: Configuring virtual terminals

The virtual terminals will display whatever's sent to them, so just write whatever text you like to /dev/vc/n, where n is the number of the VT you want to use. syslog is handy for this; just add something like this to the end of /etc/syslog-ng.conf:

destination vt_12 { file("/dev/vc/12"); };
log { source(src); filter(f_messages); destination(vt_12); };

Replace f_messages with any of the filters defined in the file to get other information. You can even leave out the filter, if you want to see everything.

eskay

Member

Registered: 2008-04-23

Posts: 23

Re: Configuring virtual terminals

Thanks. The code already existed. I just had to uncomment the last line which committed it to the console.