xref: /dragonfly/lib/libutil/pty.3 (revision 7bc7e232)
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2.\" Copyright (c) 1996 Joerg Wunsch
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26.\" $FreeBSD: src/lib/libutil/pty.3,v 1.8.2.3 2001/12/17 10:08:32 ru Exp $
27.\" $DragonFly: src/lib/libutil/pty.3,v 1.3 2007/06/30 19:03:52 swildner Exp $
28.\" "
29.Dd December 29, 1996
30.Os
31.Dt PTY 3
32.Sh NAME
33.Nm openpty ,
34.Nm forkpty
35.Nd auxiliary functions to obtain a pseudo-terminal
36.Sh LIBRARY
37.Lb libutil
38.Sh SYNOPSIS
39.In sys/types.h
40.In sys/ioctl.h
41.In termios.h
42.In libutil.h
43.Ft int
44.Fn openpty "int *amaster" "int *aslave" "char *name" "struct termios *termp" "struct winsize *winp"
45.Ft int
46.Fn forkpty "int *amaster" "char *name" "struct termios *termp" "struct winsize *winp"
47.Sh DESCRIPTION
48The function
49.Fn openpty
50attempts to obtain the next available pseudo-terminal from the system (see
51.Xr pty 4 ) .
52If it successfully finds one, it subsequently tries to change the
53ownership of the slave device to the real UID of the current process,
54the group membership to the group
55.Dq tty
56(if such a group exists in the system), the access permissions for
57reading and writing by the owner, and for writing by the group, and to
58invalidate any current use of the line by calling
59.Xr revoke 2 .
60.Pp
61If the argument
62.Fa name
63is not
64.Dv NULL ,
65.Fn openpty
66copies the pathname of the slave pty to this area.  The caller is
67responsible for allocating the required space in this array.
68.Pp
69If the arguments
70.Fa termp
71or
72.Fa winp
73are not
74.Dv NULL ,
75.Fn openpty
76initializes the termios and window size settings from the structures
77these arguments point to, respectively.
78.Pp
79Upon return, the open file descriptors for the master and slave side
80of the pty are returned in the locations pointed to by
81.Fa amaster
82and
83.Fa aslave ,
84respectively.
85.Pp
86.Fn Forkpty
87first calls
88.Fn openpty
89to obtain the next available pseudo-terminal from the system.  Upon success,
90it forks off a new process.  In the child process, it closes the descriptor
91for the master side of the pty, and calls
92.Xr login_tty 3
93for the slave pty.  In the parent process, it closes the descriptor for the
94slave side of the pty.  The arguments
95.Fa amaster ,
96.Fa name ,
97.Fa termp ,
98and
99.Fa winp
100have the same meaning as described for
101.Fn openpty .
102.Sh RETURN VALUES
103.Fn Openpty
104returns 0 on success, or -1 on failure.
105.Pp
106.Fn Forkpty
107returns -1 on failure, 0 in the slave process, and the process ID of the
108slave process in the parent process.
109.Sh ERRORS
110On failure,
111.Fn openpty
112will set the global variable
113.Va errno
114to
115.Er ENOENT .
116.Pp
117In addition to this,
118.Fn forkpty
119may set it to any value as described for
120.Xr fork 2 .
121.Sh SEE ALSO
122.Xr chmod 2 ,
123.Xr chown 2 ,
124.Xr fork 2 ,
125.Xr getuid 2 ,
126.Xr open 2 ,
127.Xr revoke 2 ,
128.Xr login_tty 3 ,
129.Xr pty 4 ,
130.Xr termios 4 ,
131.Xr group 5
132.Sh BUGS
133The calling process must have an effective UID of super-user in order
134to perform all the intended actions.  No notification will occur if
135.Fn openpty
136or
137.Fn forkpty
138failed to proceed with one of the described steps, as long as they could
139at least allocate the pty at all (and create the new process in the case
140of
141.Fn forkpty ) .
142