FreeBSD – running HTOP instead of login screen on TTY0 console

Author: Yaroslav Koisa

Created on 6 January 2021

Last edit commited on 5 July 2023

Please note: This blog post is not yet finished. Everything should work as expected, but the post lacks some screenshots/photos, explanation to most of the steps, etc.

1. Install htop and tmux or build them from ports

pkg install htop
## I will be using nano as my editor of choise and bash as my shell of choise. Let's install them:
pkg install nano bash

2. Edit /etc/gettytab

Edit /etc/gettytab and add few additional lines to end of that file:
nano /etc/gettytab

HTOP|htop|HTOP running inside of TMUX:\
:ht:np:sp#15200:lo=/root/start-htop.sh:al=root:

3. Create start-htop.sh and run chmod +x to allow execution

Create our start-htop.sh and add the required commands to it:
nano /root/start-htop.sh

#!/usr/local/bin/bash
export PATH=/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin
tmux new-session htop

Add execute permissions:
chmod +x /root/start-htop.sh

4. Edit /etc/ttys to reconfigure TTY0

Edit the file /etc/ttys:
nano /etc/ttys

And replace the line that starts with ttyv0 (it was at line 32 in my config) with the next line:

ttyv0   "/usr/libexec/getty htop"            xterm   on secure

5. Reboot or run kill -1 1 to reflect the latest changes

At this point everything is ready and you have 2 options – reboot the system or hup the init system in order to show the latest changes on the screen at TTY level.
a) Reboot:
reboot
OR
b) Send HUP to init system:
kill -1 1

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