What is 'Getty'? I noticed there are six occurences of it in my System Monitor

11.10 laptop system-monitor

13,387

getty is what sits on the text-mode consoles and waits for someone to log in. It configures the tty device and spawns login when typed at; historically it adapted to the communications line based on what it received, but especially on VCs this is no longer necessary.

13,387

jredkai

I'm an American, but I moved to Thailand for a better way of life. It has been about two years now and not one time have I regretted it, it is difficult at times but well worth it! I am a hobbyist programmer (I say hobbyist but I am learning by myself, more or less), I am studying Python and Ruby mostly. And unfortunately C#, we are after all still in a Windows (Mac) kind of world. Both are evil entities trying to corrupt civilization => Mac$ and Micro$ = EVIL!!! That's why I love Linux, I have played with Fedora, Chakra, and Mint but I always come back to Ubuntu, I don't care what anyone says about the "Unity" project, I like it, needs some more time and it will own lives!

Updated on September 18, 2022

Comments

jredkai almost 2 years

I'm just curious what 'Getty' is and what it does. The past few days I have noticed that there are always at least six instances of it in System Monitor, each using about 640 KiB memory and status says "n_tty_read".

What does this mean?
jredkai about 12 years

Ok, I just don't understand why I would have 6 going all the time. Is this anything to be concerned about or is this something that is harmless?
BillThor about 12 years

This is nothing to be concerned about. It is common to have six virtual terminals each of which will have getty running unless you are logged in.
Shailesh Sutar almost 7 years

Is it okay to remove getty from server? I just need assurance that it won't affect logins of users.