On Fri 23 Oct 2015 at 11:56:05 +0100, Jim Ottaway wrote: > I'm using Debian GNU/Linux 8 (jessie). > > I've just noticed that there's always a root console open on tty9 on my > laptop after booting. Is this normal or should I worry? > > I've looked around on the web for information but haven't found anything > useful about this. Last time I poked around for this sort of thing on a > computer I'd have looked in places like /etc/inittab, but now it seems > that things have moved on from sysvinit to systemd, and I've no idea > where to look now. > > If it's any help: I'm running without a desktop environment, just > booting to a console and starting X with stumpwm manually.
Please see the manual for systemd-debug-generator and try systemctl stop debug-shell.service tty9 should become unresponsive. Then systemctl disable debug-shell.service The behaviour you describe is not normal here. Having a root shell always open is a security risk.
