xlsh - eXtended Login Shell (c) 2011 Michał Siejak

A simple login shell with readline functionality and PAM integration.

• When run stand-alone on a virtual console it can replace standard "login" program.
• When run in cooperation with X daemon component (xlshd) it can replace XDM/GDM/KDM.

Full documentation can be found here:

• https://github.com/Nadrin/xlsh/wiki

Features:

• Small and simple, written entirely in C.
• Easily hackable because of compact codebase (~1000 source lines).
• Uses PAM for authorization and session management.
• Ability to select non-default shell/window manager during logon.
• Entirely keyboard driven display manager replacement (when used with xlshd) without the need for any fat libraries or GUI toolkits.
• Defaults configured before compilation, some of them can be changed by setting few environment variables.
• Single shell script file (/etc/xlsh/xlshrc) for customizing how xlshd launches xlsh.
• Introduces a concept of "pre-login shell" known from GNU/HURD.
• Only three important commands: 'login', 'reboot' and 'shutdown'.
• New commands can be easily added (if you need any) by editing xlsh.c
• Username autocompletion on TAB.
• Zenburn color scheme by default (when run under X).

The only build dependencies are: make, a decent C compiler, libreadline and libpam. Configuration options can be edited in include/config.h before compiling.

Runtime dependencies for xlshd are: standard X11 distribution with xterm and (optionally) xdotool for enforcing terminal window focus on multi-monitor setups.

When using xlsh as "login" replacement remember to tell your getty program to not ask for username. When using xlshd from inittab specify -f flag so it won't fork into background.

Example lines from my inittab file:

xlsh on virtual console #1 (tty1)

c1:2345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -8 -s 38400 -n -l /usr/local/sbin/xlsh tty1 linux

xlshd starting X server and xterm/xlsh on runlevel 5

x:5:respawn:/usr/local/sbin/xlshd -f

Thanks goes to Mateusz Hromada for testing and providing useful patches. ;-)

Please report any bugs or issues either via github or via mail to: <my_firstname@my_lastname.pl>