Change login prompt on Debian server

Question

I need to change a telnet login prompt of Debian 4.0 server. Currently it is of form:

hostname login:

I need to have just:

login:

Apparently chnages to /etc/issue.net only influence what is displayed before "login prompt" not the actual prompt.

Thanks!

For the love of all that is good and holy, don't use telnet. SSHd is a much more secure and much more functional alternative.
I am well aware of security implications when using plain text protocol such as telnet, thank you! But I am dealing with a closed commercial product which relies on telnet being enabled. And by no means Debian server is exposed to unsecure networks such as Internet :)

whitequark · Answer 1 · 2010-11-24 10:05:54Z

up vote 1 down vote

The -h argument controls printing of hostname at login prompt:

-h   Disables the printing of host-specific information before login has been completed.

You should add this option to corresponding line in your /etc/inetd.conf, like:

telnet          stream  tcp     nowait  telnetd /usr/sbin/tcpd  /usr/sbin/in.telnetd telnetd -h

answered Nov 24 '10 at 10:05

	OK, this looks promising, but it does not actually have an effect. I changed inetd.conf as you suggested, restarted inetd service, but still i get hostname in login prompt. I did try to run in.telnetd with "-h -debug" options from command line (inetd was disabled) nad still the same result. Perhaps telnetd is ignoring -h option. – JasonPa112 Nov 24 '10 at 10:18
	Oh. That's because `/usr/lib/telnetlogin`, which is used by Debian to allow running telnet as nobody, ignores all relevant options (and its manpage says it is, quoted, "EXPERIMENTAL CODE"). I'll take a look at other options. – whitequark Nov 24 '10 at 10:25
	I tried installing "inetutils-telnetd" package. In case of telnetd from this packahe "-h" has actually an effect, but only to what is printed before login prompt. Basically with -h on, it will not print host information (like Linux version, hostname tty etc). – JasonPa112 Nov 24 '10 at 10:29
	I tried that, too. `inetutils-telnetd` uses system login, which does not have `-h` option too. – whitequark Nov 24 '10 at 11:25
	Well, looks like there is no way to do this in Debian without recompiling any of packages handling login (`login`, regular `telnetd`), which I would not recommend because of update and security reasons. I've thought about filtering `login` output somehow with a wrapper, but I don't think it is possible to do that without affecting the output of programs running inside the shell, which is not desirable I think. – whitequark Nov 25 '10 at 3:02

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