On Sat, 23 Aug 2008, Ed Schouten wrote:
Won't older pty-using binaries from 4.x/5.x/6.x/7.x running with compat
parts or old library versions still use old-style ptys, and hence need them
in /etc/ttys?
It really depends on what your definition of "need" is in this case. The
reason why PTY's are listed in /etc/ttys, is to store login entries in
/var/run/utmp. This means lastlog and wtmp are not affected.
There is no need for an entry in /etc/ttys to be able to use a TTY and there
is no guarantee an application using PTY's actually logs its usage in any
logfile.
The reason why I chose to remove the old devices and add some additional
lines for pts(4), was because I was looking at a typical setup. The previous
/etc/ttys was quite broken in two ways:
So users using slightly old versions of screen, etc, shouldn't appear in
finger(1), w(1), or receive messages from biff(1), talk(1), write(1), wall(1),
shutdown(8), and dump(8), all of which (I believe) rely on utmp(5) to
determine who is logged in and where? I'm sure that quite a few of these are
of diminishing significance in the current world order (certainly biff is),
but I'm not convinced that we should exclude users on historic tty devices
from receiving advance notice of system shutdowns or dump events.
Robert N M Watson
Computer Laboratory
University of Cambridge
- It contained 512 entries for a PTY naming scheme that (in RFC terms)
SHOULD NOT be used on most common setups.
- It contained 256 entries for a PTY naming scheme that we use right
now.
If we wanted to make everyone happy, I could have just added all pts(4)
entries from 0 to 999, but that would have made /var/run/utmp at least
75 KB, which is a little big in my opinion. Rhis is why I, based on my
expectations of the typical use case, decided to remove the pty(4)
entries and extend the pts(4) ones.
--
Ed Schouten <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
WWW: http://80386.nl/
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