to my test pc's serial port, it will prompt for the username and then initiate a telnet session for you. Now how can I get mgetty to skip the login prompt entirely and go right to telnet? Any ideas?
I think Adam might be right, you probably don't want a *getty at all here! What you almost certainly want to do is just program the raw serial interface, perl would be easiest, but python might have modules for it too.
Oh ya, and since you don't ever *getty or telnet the user never gets a prompt! Very important! You don't want them to be able to break out to a prompt unless the system is VERY VERY locked down and VERY VERY basic.
Your script would pre-setup each "modem" line (ATZ AT&S0=1 blah blah) and just wait for CONNECT (or RING) if you don't want to use autoanswer. There is no telnet or getty at all. You just then start talking your medical protocol via the script. Seems very easy and straightforward to me. I could probably have it all working in a day.
Maybe add in a periodic check that each modem's connection hasn't been tied up more than X minutes to stop zombie connections.