Setting a default login shell

You can choose either the Interix Korn shell or the Interix C shell from the Start menu. The default shell is determined differently when you use rlogin(1) or telnet(1) to log on to your system.

When you log on to a system using telnet, the login shell is determined by how the Telnet server is configured on the remote system. Most Windows-based Telnet servers provide the command interpreter, cmd.exe, as the default login shell. The Interix telnetd server, which can be configured to start when you start the inetd daemon, uses the Korn shell (ksh) as the default login shell. You can automatically start telnetd by entering a line for it in the inetd.conf file. For more information on inetd and inetd.conf, see inetd(1).

The default login shell for Telnet is stored in the Security Accounts Manager (SAM) database, under the User Comment field of a user account. In Windows NT 4.0, you can modify user accounts by using User Manager; however, User Manager does not give you access to the User Comment field. In Windows 2000 or Windows XP, you can use Local Users and Groups in Computer Management to modify user accounts, but just as in Windows NT 4.0, you will be unable to the User Comment field.

Someone with Administrator rights can change the User Comment field from the command line by using the Windows net command. At the Windows command prompt, use the following to set the default login shell to the C shell:

net user logname /usercomment:"default shell" [/domain]

The logname argument is the name with which you log on. The /domain switch is optional if you are logging on from the current domain.

For example, the following command sets the default logon shell to the C shell for a user named "carlos" in the current domain:

net user carlos /usercomment:"/bin/csh"

The /etc/passwd file, which in UNIX typically contains a field with the name of each user's login shell, is not used in Interix. User and group information is stored in Windows, either within a SAM database or an Active Directory database.