utility to determine rlogin?

[Jerry Peek]

A while back, I wrote about a utility called "ttykind" that looks up your
terminal type in /etc/ttys.

In article <16281 at brl-adm.ARPA> rbj at cmr.icst.nbs.gov (Root Boy Jim) writes:
> ? From: Rick Lindsley <richl at penguin.uss.tek.com>
> 
> ? In article <16109 at brl-adm.ARPA> rbj at icst-cmr.arpa (Root Boy Jim) writes:
> ?     Why not just do `switch ($term)'? You don't need ttykind, except for
> ?     finding out *other* peoples terminal types.
> 
> ? Because rlogin will pass the terminal type across for you. $term may not
> ? provide the information you want.
> 
> Well, I see your point, but still disagree. If I rlogin from a sun console
> to a VAX, why would I want anything other than a Sun termcap?

It's not just to get the termcap.  Someone posted a note about terminal
concentrators; that's what Rick was talking about, too, I think.  They can
hide the real terminal characteristics.

For instance, I used to use 1200-baud dialup lines a lot (yecch!).  Some
programs check the data rate and adjust to slow lines.  For instance, "vi"
sets a smaller window size at slow speeds.  But our Sytek hid the dialup
lines' speeds; all Sytek port connections to our VAX were at 9600 baud.
We had the same problem on network connections; the real terminal speed was
lost.  So, I put a test in .login for the output of "ttykind" -- if the port
was sytek or network, I'd be prompted for the *real* data rate, which was
stored in an envariable named REAL_BAUD -- that was used to set aliases,
EXINIT and RNINIT envariables, etc., that made baudrate-sensitive programs
work right on sytek and network connections.

--Jerry Peek, Northeast Parallel Architectures Center, Syracuse, NY
  jerryp at cmx.npac.syr.edu
  +1 315 423-4120