Maybe something like this can prevent the worst case scenario: In INSTALL pre: [ -e /var/service/agetty-tty6 ] && sv stop /var/service/agetty-tty6 ln -sf /etc/sv/agetty-tty6 /var/service/rescue-tty6 In INSTALL post: rm -f /var/service/rescue-tty6 [ -e /var/service/agetty-tty6 ] && sv up /var/service/agetty-tty6 That way, even if all standard TTYs are removed during install, there is at least the rescue TTY.