eterm-color and sysinstall (Error opening terminal: eterm-color)

[jrm@]

When I start a terminal within editors/emacs and run sysinstall, I get the error:

Error opening terminal: eterm-color.

% env | grep -i term

INSIDE_EMACS=23.3.1,term:0.96
TERMINFO=/usr/local/share/emacs/23.3/etc/
TERM=eterm-color
EMACS=23.3.1 (term:0.96)
TERMCAP=eterm-color:li#45:co#126:cl=\E[H\E[J:cd=\E[J:bs:am:xn:cm=\E[%i%d;%dH:nd=\E[C:up=\E[A:ce=\E[K:ho=\E[H:pt:al=\E[L:dl=\E[
M:DL=\E[%dM:AL=\E[%dL:cs=\E[%i%d;%dr:sf=^J:dc=\E[P:DC=\E[%dP:IC=\E[%d@:im=\E[4h:ei=\E[4l:mi::so=\E[7m:se=\E[m:us=\E[4m:ue=\E[m
:md=\E[1m:mr=\E[7m:me=\E[m:UP=\E[%dA:DO=\E[%dB:LE=\E[%dD:RI=\E[%dC:kl=\EOD:kd=\EOB:kr=\EOC:ku=\EOA:kN=\E[6~:kP=\E[5~:@7=\E[4~:
kh=\E[1~:mk=\E[8m:cb=\E[1K:op=\E[39;49m:Co#8:pa#64:AB=\E[4%dm:AF=\E[3%dm:cr=^M:bl=^G:do=^J:le=^H:ta=^I:se=\E[27m:ue=\E24m:kb=^
?:kD=^[[3~:sc=\E7:rc=\E8:r1=\Ec:

I also tried
% ln -s /usr/local/share/emacs/23.3/etc/e/eterm-color* ~/.terminfo/e/
and setting $TERM to xterm, vt100 and screen. sysinstall works when I set $TERM to these values, but the text is garbled. Is something missing?

 

[jrm@]

I think I have a solution for anyone running into the same problem. This solves lots of terminal problems for me when I start a term buffer then do any of su, ssh or sudo. Any comments or suggestions are welcome.

Add the entry for eterm-color (copied below) to /usr/share/misc/termcap.
# cd /usr/share/misc && mv /usr/share/misc/termcap.db /usr/share/misc/termcap.db.bak
# cap_mkdb termcap

# Termcap entry for eterm-color
eterm-color|Emacs term.el terminal emulator term-protocol-version 0.96:\
       :am:bs:mi:pt:xn:\
       :Co#8:co#166:li#48:pa#64:\
       :@7=\E[4~:AB=\E[4%dm:AF=\E[3%dm:AL=\E[%dL:DC=\E[%dP:\
       :DL=\E[%dM:DO=\E[%dB:IC=\E[%d@:LE=\E[%dD:RI=\E[%dC:\
       :UP=\E[%dA:al=\E[L:bl=^G:cb=\E[1K:cd=\E[J:ce=\E[K:\
       :cl=\E[H\E[J:cm=\E[%i%d;%dH:cr=^M:cs=\E[%i%d;%dr:dc=\E[P:\
       :dl=\E[M:do=^J:ei=\E[4l:ho=\E[H:im=\E[4h:kD=^[[3~:\
       :kN=\E[6~:kP=\E[5~:kb=^?:kd=\EOB:kh=\E[1~:kl=\EOD:\
       :kr=\EOC:ku=\EOA:le=^H:md=\E[1m:me=\E[m:mk=\E[8m:mr=\E[7m:\
       :nd=\E[C:op=\E[39;49m:r1=\Ec:rc=\E8:sc=\E7:se=\E[27m:sf=^J:\
       :so=\E[7m:ta=^I:ue=\E[m:\
       :up=\E[A:us=\E[4m:

 

[jrm@]

I'll continue my monologue by asking a followup question. On some machines (maybe linux) where I don't have root access how can I use this termcap entry. I've set the shell variable $TERMCAP to the actual entry and I've also created the file ~/.termcap and set $TERMCAP to point to that file, but no luck.