who/what is this on 'who' command output

rng · 02-20-2013, 09:50 PM

The output of 'who' command on my debian sid system with lxde and lightdm is:

Quote:

$ who
abcde tty7 2013-02-21 08:37
abcde pts/0 2013-02-21 08:37 (:0)
abcde pts/1 2013-02-21 08:37 (:0)

I have two terminals open at this time. My username is abcde. If I remember correctly, 'who' used to give 2 lines pts/0 and pts/1 when 2 terminals were open. What is this tty7 entry?

I tried command 'ps aux | grep tty7' . The output was:

Quote:

$ ps aux | grep tty7
root 902 3.0 2.4 25844 12448 tty7 Ss+ 08:37 1:16 /usr/bin/Xorg :0 -auth /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp vt7 -novtswitch

Is there anything to worry about here? Thanks for your help.

chrism01 · 02-20-2013, 11:11 PM

The tty session is where you logged in, pts is for the 2 terminals you have open.

kooru · 02-21-2013, 03:19 AM

This thread could be useful

Habitual · 02-21-2013, 07:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rng

What is this tty7 entry?

It is your login to the desktop that is using this.

Test:
Close programs and logout to login screen.
Ctrl+Alt+F1 but do not login
Ctrl+Alt+F7 should take you back to graphical login dialog.

Nothing to worry about.

tty7 will always be in use if you are using a desktop environment. The other 2 are your 2 open bash shells.

rng · 02-21-2013, 07:47 AM

Thanks for your reassuring comments.

I have debian wheezy (with lxde- same as the one with debian sid/unstable) installed on another computer where 'who' command outputs only pts/1 and pts/0 lines. No tty line here.

Though the command 'ps aux | grep tty' produces this output:

Quote:

root 1096 0.0 0.0 3780 848 tty1 Ss+ 20:24 0:00 /sbin/agetty tty1 38400
root 1107 0.5 0.9 58520 36996 tty7 Ss+ 20:24 0:36 /usr/bin/X :0 -auth /var/run/lightdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp vt7 -novtswitch

How do you explain that?

Habitual · 02-21-2013, 10:51 AM

I don't run debian, so I can't explain it with any reasonable assurance.

Different implementation of the "who" command, an alias that suppresses tty on "who"?, I could theorize for an hour on any one of of those 'reasons', but I'd be talking out of my arse.