The name and type fields are simple words, name is the name of the terminal device with /dev stripped off, and type tells the type of terminal to initialize the TERM environment variable.

The getty and init fields may name commands that are run to allow one to login on the line, or to initialize the line. Both these fields may be more than one word if the whole field is enclosed in double quotes. Getty is usually simply the word getty , the command that prints a system identification banner and allows on to type a name to log in. Init is usually an stty command to set the baud rate and parity of a serial line.

The init field may be omitted to indicate that no initialization is necessary, and the getty field may be left out to not start a login process. Terminals should not be left out, because their place in the ttytab file determines their slot number as returned by ttyslot (3).

Comments (introduced by #) and empty lines are ignored.

console minix getty
tty00 vt100 getty "stty 9600"
tty01 dialup getty "stty 38400"
ttyp0 network

15n TERM Terminal type