xref: /freebsd/lib/libutil/pty.3 (revision 2008043f386721d58158e37e0d7e50df8095942d)
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26.Dd June 2, 2018
27.Dt PTY 3
28.Os
29.Sh NAME
30.Nm openpty ,
31.Nm forkpty
32.Nd auxiliary functions to obtain a pseudo-terminal
33.Sh LIBRARY
34.Lb libutil
35.Sh SYNOPSIS
36.In sys/types.h
37.In sys/ioctl.h
38.In termios.h
39.In libutil.h
40.Ft int
41.Fn openpty "int *amaster" "int *aslave" "char *name" "struct termios *termp" "struct winsize *winp"
42.Ft int
43.Fn forkpty "int *amaster" "char *name" "struct termios *termp" "struct winsize *winp"
44.Sh DESCRIPTION
45The function
46.Fn openpty
47attempts to obtain the next available pseudo-terminal from the system (see
48.Xr pty 4 ) .
49If it successfully finds one, it subsequently changes the
50ownership of the slave device to the real UID of the current process,
51the group membership to the group
52.Dq tty
53(if such a group exists in the system), the access permissions for
54reading and writing by the owner, and for writing by the group, and
55invalidates any current use of the line by calling
56.Xr revoke 2 .
57.Pp
58If the argument
59.Fa name
60is not
61.Dv NULL ,
62.Fn openpty
63copies the pathname of the slave pty to this area.
64The caller is
65responsible for allocating the required space in this array.
66.Pp
67If the arguments
68.Fa termp
69or
70.Fa winp
71are not
72.Dv NULL ,
73.Fn openpty
74initializes the termios and window size settings from the structures
75these arguments point to, respectively.
76.Pp
77Upon return, the open file descriptors for the master and slave side
78of the pty are returned in the locations pointed to by
79.Fa amaster
80and
81.Fa aslave ,
82respectively.
83.Pp
84The
85.Fn forkpty
86function first calls
87.Fn openpty
88to obtain the next available pseudo-terminal from the system.
89Upon success,
90it forks off a new process.
91In the child process, it closes the descriptor
92for the master side of the pty, and calls
93.Xr login_tty 3
94for the slave pty.
95In the parent process, it closes the descriptor for the
96slave side of the pty.
97The arguments
98.Fa amaster ,
99.Fa name ,
100.Fa termp ,
101and
102.Fa winp
103have the same meaning as described for
104.Fn openpty .
105.Sh RETURN VALUES
106The
107.Fn openpty
108function returns 0 on success, or -1 on failure.
109.Pp
110The
111.Fn forkpty
112function returns -1 on failure, 0 in the slave process, and the process ID of
113the slave process in the parent process.
114.Sh ERRORS
115The
116.Fn openpty
117function may fail and set the global variable
118.Dv errno
119for any of the errors specified for the
120.Xr grantpt 3 ,
121.Xr posix_openpt 2 ,
122.Xr ptsname 3 ,
123and
124.Xr unlockpt 3
125functions and the
126.Xr revoke 2
127system call.
128.Pp
129In addition to this,
130.Fn forkpty
131may set it to any value as described for
132.Xr fork 2 .
133.Sh SEE ALSO
134.Xr chmod 2 ,
135.Xr chown 2 ,
136.Xr fork 2 ,
137.Xr getuid 2 ,
138.Xr open 2 ,
139.Xr revoke 2 ,
140.Xr login_tty 3 ,
141.Xr pty 4 ,
142.Xr termios 4 ,
143.Xr group 5
144.Sh HISTORY
145The
146.Fn openpty
147and
148.Fn forkpty
149functions first appeared in
150.Bx 4.3 Reno .
151.Sh BUGS
152.Fn openpty
153writes the slave terminal's name to
154.Fa name ,
155but does not check that sufficient space is available.
156It is advisable to use
157.Xr ptsname 3
158instead.
159