There are several different classes of action that you can specify in
/etc/ttyaction.  In mine, I have a line like so:

ttyE?   getty   /bin/echo -n >>/dev/${TTY} "ESC[HESC[J"

(where ESC is actually the ASCII <ESC> character)

This causes the local terminals to home the cursorand clear the screen
between logins.  I kind of like this feature.  However, it has one
problem: It does it *before* the login, not *after* the logout.

The difference is subtle, but it matters in one key case: On ttyE0, I'd
like to be able to see the tail end of the boot messages.

I suppose that I could set up /etc/ttys so that you simply can't login to
ttyE0.  (Would X try to use it as an available virtual terminal, then?)
But I'd rather have the option open to login.

The ideal is to actually cause the event to happen after the user logs
out.  (Which is what I thought was meant by the ttyaction(5) man-page
for the ``getty'' action.)

  ``I probably don't know what I'm talking about.'' --rauch@math.rice.edu