diff -Nru mingetty-0.9.4.orig/mingetty.8 mingetty-0.9.4/mingetty.8
--- mingetty-0.9.4.orig/mingetty.8	Sun Apr 29 19:38:31 2001
+++ mingetty-0.9.4/mingetty.8	Sun Apr 29 19:40:47 2001
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 mingetty \- minimal getty for consoles
 .SH SYNOPSIS
 .B mingetty
-[\-\-noclear] [\-\-long\-hostname]
+[\-\-noclear] [\-\-long\-hostname] [\-\-autologin username]
 .I tty
 .PP
 .SH DESCRIPTION
@@ -27,6 +27,41 @@
 By default the hostname is only printed until the first dot.
 With this option enabled, the full text from gethostname() is shown.
 .TP
+.B \-\-autologin username
+Log the specified user onto the console (normally
+.IR  /dev/tty1 )
+when the system is first booted without prompting for a username or
+password.
+.IP
+When the autologin option is supplied,
+.B mingetty 
+will check that the controlling terminal is the console (normally
+.IR /dev/tty1 ), 
+that a reasonable username has been supplied, and that this is the
+first autologin request since the system has booted.  If all of these
+conditions have been met, a request for an unauthenticated login is
+passed to the
+.B login 
+program.  Otherwise, a normal interactive login is performed.
+.IP
+The
+.B login 
+program may deny the request for an unauthenticated login.  Typically
+this will happen when the user is root, has a UID of 0, or whenever a
+normal interactive login would be denied due to the access
+restrictions specified in the
+.IR nologin , 
+.IR usertty , 
+or
+.I securetty 
+files.
+.IP
+Only a single autologin request will be issued after a system boot.
+If the automated login request is denied, or if the user logs out, 
+.B mingetty
+will revert to performing normal interactive logins for all subsequent
+login requests.
+.TP
 .B \-\-mono
 Set terminal type to "linux-m" instead of default "linux" (for mono consoles)
 .TP
@@ -73,7 +108,8 @@
 .PP
 .SH FILES
 .IR /etc/issue ,
-.IR /var/run/utmp .
+.IR /var/run/utmp ,
+.IR /var/log/autologin .
 .PP
 .SH "SEE ALSO"
 .BR mgetty (8),
diff -Nru mingetty-0.9.4.orig/mingetty.c mingetty-0.9.4/mingetty.c
--- mingetty-0.9.4.orig/mingetty.c	Sun Apr 29 19:38:31 2001
+++ mingetty-0.9.4/mingetty.c	Sun Apr 29 19:44:14 2001
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@
  *  should be very reliable. For a modem getty, I'd also use nothing else
  *  but mgetty.
  *
- *  Usage: mingetty [--noclear] tty
+ *  Usage: mingetty [--noclear] [--autologin username] tty
  *  Example entry in /etc/inittab: 1:123:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty1
  *
  *  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
@@ -53,6 +53,20 @@
 #endif
 
 #ifdef linux
+/* Autologin stuff.  Currently Linux-specific, since there's no
+   standard way of getting the system boot time.  The kernel.h and the
+   sysinfo prototype are used to get the system uptime under Linux. */
+#include <linux/kernel.h>
+int sysinfo(struct sysinfo *info);
+
+/* AUTO_LAST points to a timestamp file used to limit autologins to
+   one per system boot. */
+#define AUTO_LAST "/var/log/autologin"
+
+/* AUTO_TTY is the tty on which autologins will be accepted.  If set
+   to an empty string, autologins will be accepted on any tty. */
+#define AUTO_TTY "tty1"
+
 #include <sys/param.h>
 #define USE_SYSLOG
 #endif
@@ -84,6 +98,8 @@
 static int noclear = 0;
 /* Print the whole string of gethostname() instead of just until the next "." */
 static int longhostname = 0;
+/* If supplied, attempt an automatic login with this username. */
+static char *autologin_name = NULL;
 /* Set mono terminal type */
 static int mono_term = 0;
 /* Log onto remote host */
@@ -398,6 +414,62 @@
 	return logname;
 }
 
+/*
+ * autologin_ok -- returns 1 if it's okay to auto-login when:
+ *   this login is from /dev/tty1; and
+ *   there was a login name passed with the --autologin option; and
+ *   the autologin_name contains only "nice" characters; and
+ *   this is the first autologin attempt since the last boot; 
+ * return 0 otherwise.
+ */
+static int autologin_ok(void)
+{
+	char c, *cp;
+	int stat_err, fd;
+	struct sysinfo info;
+	struct stat sbuf;
+
+	/* Autologins are restricted to AUTO_TTY if non-empty. */
+	if (AUTO_TTY[0] && strcmp(tty, AUTO_TTY))
+		return 0;
+
+	/* An all-alphanumeric autologin name must be supplied. */
+	if (autologin_name == NULL || autologin_name[0] == '\0')
+		return 0;
+	for (cp = autologin_name; (c = *cp); cp++)
+		if (!isalnum(c) && c != '_')
+			return 0;
+
+	/* Get the uptime in info.uptime, and the last autologin time
+           in sbuf.st_mtime. */
+	sysinfo(&info);
+	stat_err = stat(AUTO_LAST, &sbuf);
+
+	/* If a stat error other than "no such file" occurs, I don't
+           know what went wrong, so I'll proceed with caution by
+           denying the autologin request. */
+	if (stat_err && errno != ENOENT)
+		return 0;
+
+	/* If there's been an autologin granted since the last boot,
+           deny this and any subsequent attempts.  Note that this test
+           is skipped if the AUTO_LAST file doesn't exist. */
+	if (!stat_err && time(NULL) - info.uptime < sbuf.st_mtime)
+		return 0;
+
+	/* Create the AUTO_LAST file.  The mtime of this file provides
+           a persistent record of the last time that an autologin
+           request was granted.  Deny the autologin request if either
+           the file open or file close fails. */
+	if ((fd=open(AUTO_LAST, O_WRONLY | O_CREAT | O_TRUNC, 0644)) < 0)
+		return 0;
+	if (close(fd) != 0)
+		return 0;
+
+	/* All tests are okay, so grant the autologin request. */
+	return 1;
+}
+
 static void usage (void)
 {
 	error ("usage: '%s tty' with e.g. tty=tty1", progname);
@@ -406,6 +478,7 @@
 static struct option const long_options[] = {
 	{ "noclear", no_argument, &noclear, 1},
 	{ "long-hostname", no_argument, &longhostname, 1},
+ 	{ "autologin", required_argument, NULL, 'a'},
 	{ "mono", no_argument, &mono_term, 1},
 	{ "remote-host", required_argument, NULL, 2},
 	{ "login-program", required_argument, NULL, 3},
@@ -441,6 +514,9 @@
 				strncpy(login_program, optarg, 1024);
 				login_program[1023] = '\0';
 				break;
+			case 'a':
+				autologin_name = optarg;
+				break;
 			default:
 				usage ();
 		}
@@ -476,6 +552,9 @@
 	/* flush input and output queues, important for modems */
 	ioctl (0, TCFLSH, 2);
 
+ 	if (autologin_ok()) {
+ 		execl (_PATH_LOGIN, _PATH_LOGIN, "-f", autologin_name, NULL);
+ 	} else {
 	while ((logname = get_logname ()) == 0);
 
 	if (!remote_login) {
@@ -487,6 +566,7 @@
 			    strncpy(login_program, _PATH_SSH, 1024);
 		  execl (login_program, login_program, "-l", logname, remote_host, NULL);
 	}
+	}
 	error ("%s: can't exec %s: %s", login_program, tty, sys_errlist[errno]);
 	exit (0);
 }