xref: /freebsd/share/man/man4/tty.4 (revision afe61c15161c324a7af299a9b8457aba5afc92db)
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32.\"     @(#)tty.4	8.3 (Berkeley) 4/19/94
33.\"
34.Dd August 14, 1992
35.Dt TTY 4
36.Os BSD 4
37.Sh NAME
38.Nm tty
39.Nd general terminal interface
40.Sh SYNOPSIS
41.Fd #include <sys/ioctl.h>
42.Sh DESCRIPTION
43This section describes the interface to the terminal drivers
44in the system.
45.Ss Terminal Special Files
46Each hardware terminal port on the system usually has a terminal special device
47file associated with it in the directory ``/dev/'' (for
48example, ``/dev/tty03'').
49When a user logs into
50the system on one of these hardware terminal ports, the system has already
51opened the associated device and prepared the line for normal interactive
52use (see
53.Xr getty 8 .)
54There is also a special case of a terminal file that connects not to
55a hardware terminal port, but to another program on the other side.
56These special terminal devices are called
57.Em ptys
58and provide the mechanism necessary to give users the same interface to the
59system when logging in over a network (using
60.Xr rlogin 1 ,
61or
62.Xr telnet 1
63for example.)  Even in these cases the details of how the terminal
64file was opened and set up is already handled by special software
65in the system.
66Thus, users do not normally need to worry about the details of
67how these lines are opened or used.  Also, these lines are often used
68for dialing out of a system (through an out-calling modem), but again
69the system provides programs that hide the details of accessing
70these terminal special files (see
71.Xr tip 2 .)
72.Pp
73When an interactive user logs in, the system prepares the line to
74behave in a certain way (called a
75.Em "line discipline" ) ,
76the particular details of which is described in
77.Xr stty 1
78at the command level, and in
79.Xr termios 4
80at the programming level.  A user may be concerned with changing
81settings associated with his particular login terminal and should refer
82to the preceding man pages for the common cases.  The remainder of
83this man page is concerned
84with describing details of using and controlling terminal devices
85at a low level, such as that possibly required by a program wishing
86to provide features similar to those provided by the system.
87.Ss Line disciplines
88A terminal file is used like any other file in the system in that
89it can be opened, read, and written to using standard system
90calls.  For each existing terminal file, there is a software processing module
91called a
92.Em "line discipline"
93is associated with it.  The
94.Em "line discipline"
95essentially glues the low level device driver code with the high
96level generic interface routines (such as
97.Xr read 2
98and
99.Xr write 2 ),
100and is responsible for implementing the semantics associated
101with the device.  When a terminal file is first opened by a program,
102the default
103.Em "line discipline"
104called the
105.Dv termios
106line discipline is associated with the file.  This is the primary
107line discipline that is used in most cases and provides the semantics
108that users normally associate with a terminal.  When the
109.Dv termios
110line discipline is in effect, the terminal file behaves and is
111operated according to the rules described in
112.Xr termios 4 .
113Please refer to that man page for a full description of the terminal
114semantics.
115The operations described here
116generally represent features common
117across all
118.Em "line disciplines" ,
119however some of these calls may not
120make sense in conjunction with a line discipline other than
121.Dv termios ,
122and some may not be supported by the underlying
123hardware (or lack thereof, as in the case of ptys).
124.Ss Terminal File Operations
125All of the following operations are invoked using the
126.Xr ioctl 2
127system call.  Refer to that man page for a description of
128the
129.Em request
130and
131.Em argp
132parameters.
133In addition to the ioctl
134.Em requests
135defined here, the specific line discipline
136in effect will define other
137.Em requests
138specific to it (actually
139.Xr termios 4
140defines them as function calls, not ioctl
141.Em requests . )
142The following section lists the available ioctl requests.  The
143name of the request, a description of its purpose, and the typed
144.Em argp
145parameter (if any)
146are listed.  For example, the first entry says
147.Pp
148.D1 Em "TIOCSETD int *ldisc"
149.Pp
150and would be called on the terminal associated with
151file descriptor zero by the following code fragment:
152.Bd -literal
153	int ldisc;
154
155	ldisc = TTYDISC;
156	ioctl(0, TIOCSETD, &ldisc);
157.Ed
158.Ss Terminal File Request Descriptions
159.Bl -tag -width TIOCGWINSZ
160.It Dv TIOCSETD Fa int *ldisc
161Change to the new line discipline pointed to by
162.Fa ldisc .
163The available line disciplines are listed in
164.Pa Aq sys/termios.h
165and currently are:
166.Pp
167.Bl -tag -width TIOCGWINSZ -compact
168.It TTYDISC
169Termios interactive line discipline.
170.It TABLDISC
171Tablet line discipline.
172.It SLIPDISC
173Serial IP line discipline.
174.El
175.Pp
176.It Dv TIOCGETD Fa int *ldisc
177Return the current line discipline in the integer pointed to by
178.Fa ldisc .
179.It Dv TIOCSBRK Fa void
180Set the terminal hardware into BREAK condition.
181.It Dv TIOCCBRK Fa void
182Clear the terminal hardware BREAK condition.
183.It Dv TIOCSDTR Fa void
184Assert data terminal ready (DTR).
185.It Dv TIOCCDTR Fa void
186Clear data terminal ready (DTR).
187.It Dv TIOCGPGRP Fa int *tpgrp
188Return the current process group the terminal is associated
189with in the integer pointed to by
190.Fa tpgrp .
191This is the underlying call that implements the
192.Xr termios 4
193.Fn tcgetattr
194call.
195.It Dv TIOCSPGRP Fa int *tpgrp
196Associate the terminal with the process group (as an integer) pointed to by
197.Fa tpgrp .
198This is the underlying call that implements the
199.Xr termios 4
200.Fn tcsetattr
201call.
202.It Dv TIOCGETA Fa struct termios *term
203Place the current value of the termios state associated with the
204device in the termios structure pointed to by
205.Fa term .
206This is the underlying call that implements the
207.Xr termios 4
208.Fn tcgetattr
209call.
210.It Dv TIOCSETA Fa struct termios *term
211Set the termios state associated with the device immediately.
212This is the underlying call that implements the
213.Xr termios 4
214.Fn tcsetattr
215call with the
216.Dv TCSANOW
217option.
218.It Dv TIOCSETAW Fa struct termios *term
219First wait for any output to complete, then set the termios state
220associated with the device.
221This is the underlying call that implements the
222.Xr termios 4
223.Fn tcsetattr
224call with the
225.Dv TCSADRAIN
226option.
227.It Dv TIOCSETAF Fa struct termios *term
228First wait for any output to complete, clear any pending input,
229then set the termios state associated with the device.
230This is the underlying call that implements the
231.Xr termios 4
232.Fn tcsetattr
233call with the
234.Dv TCSAFLUSH
235option.
236.It Dv TIOCOUTQ Fa int *num
237Place the current number of characters in the output queue in the
238integer pointed to by
239.Fa num .
240.It Dv TIOCSTI Fa char *cp
241Simulate typed input.  Pretend as if the terminal received the
242character pointed to by
243.Fa cp .
244.It Dv TIOCNOTTY Fa void
245This call is obsolete but left for compatibility.  In the past, when
246a process that didn't have a controlling terminal (see
247.Em The Controlling Terminal
248in
249.Xr termios 4 )
250first opened a terminal device, it acquired that terminal as its
251controlling terminal.  For some programs this was a hazard as they
252didn't want a controlling terminal in the first place, and this
253provided a mechanism to disassociate the controlling terminal from
254the calling process.  It
255.Em must
256be called by opening the file
257.Pa /dev/tty
258and calling
259.Dv TIOCNOTTY
260on that file descriptor.
261.Pp
262The current system does not allocate a controlling terminal to
263a process on an
264.Fn open
265call: there is a specific ioctl called
266.Dv TIOSCTTY
267to make a terminal the controlling
268terminal.
269In addition, a program can
270.Fn fork
271and call the
272.Fn setsid
273system call which will place the process into its own session - which
274has the effect of disassociating it from the controlling terminal.  This
275is the new and preferred method for programs to lose their controlling
276terminal.
277.It Dv TIOCSTOP Fa void
278Stop output on the terminal (like typing ^S at the keyboard).
279.It Dv TIOCSTART Fa void
280Start output on the terminal (like typing ^Q at the keyboard).
281.It Dv TIOCSCTTY Fa void
282Make the terminal the controlling terminal for the process (the process
283must not currently have a controlling terminal).
284.It Dv TIOCDRAIN Fa void
285Wait until all output is drained.
286.It Dv TIOCEXCL Fa void
287Set exclusive use on the terminal.  No further opens are permitted
288except by root.  Of course, this means that programs that are run by
289root (or setuid) will not obey the exclusive setting - which limits
290the usefulness of this feature.
291.It Dv TIOCNXCL Fa void
292Clear exclusive use of the terminal.  Further opens are permitted.
293.It Dv TIOCFLUSH Fa int *what
294If the value of the int pointed to by
295.Fa what
296contains the
297.Dv FREAD
298bit as defined in
299.Pa Aq sys/file.h ,
300then all characters in the input queue are cleared.  If it contains
301the
302.Dv FWRITE
303bit, then all characters in the output queue are cleared.  If the
304value of the integer is zero, then it behaves as if both the
305.Dv FREAD
306and
307.Dv FWRITE
308bits were set (i.e. clears both queues).
309.It Dv TIOCGWINSZ Fa struct winsize *ws
310Put the window size information associated with the terminal in the
311.Va winsize
312structure pointed to by
313.Fa ws .
314The window size structure contains the number of rows and columns (and pixels
315if appropriate) of the devices attached to the terminal.  It is set by user software
316and is the means by which most full\&-screen oriented programs determine the
317screen size.  The
318.Va winsize
319structure is defined in
320.Pa Aq sys/ioctl.h .
321.It Dv TIOCSWINSZ Fa struct winsize *ws
322Set the window size associated with the terminal to be the value in
323the
324.Va winsize
325structure pointed to by
326.Fa ws
327(see above).
328.It Dv TIOCCONS Fa int *on
329If
330.Fa on
331points to a non-zero integer, redirect kernel console output (kernel printf's)
332to this terminal.
333If
334.Fa on
335points to a zero integer, redirect kernel console output back to the normal
336console.  This is usually used on workstations to redirect kernel messages
337to a particular window.
338.It Dv TIOCMSET Fa int *state
339The integer pointed to by
340.Fa state
341contains bits that correspond to modem state.  Following is a list
342of defined variables and the modem state they represent:
343.Pp
344.Bl -tag -width TIOCMXCTS -compact
345.It TIOCM_LE
346Line Enable.
347.It TIOCM_DTR
348Data Terminal Ready.
349.It TIOCM_RTS
350Request To Send.
351.It TIOCM_ST
352Secondary Transmit.
353.It TIOCM_SR
354Secondary Receive.
355.It TIOCM_CTS
356Clear To Send.
357.It TIOCM_CAR
358Carrier Detect.
359.It TIOCM_CD
360Carier Detect (synonym).
361.It TIOCM_RNG
362Ring Indication.
363.It TIOCM_RI
364Ring Indication (synonym).
365.It TIOCM_DSR
366Data Set Ready.
367.El
368.Pp
369This call sets the terminal modem state to that represented by
370.Fa state .
371Not all terminals may support this.
372.It Dv TIOCMGET Fa int *state
373Return the current state of the terminal modem lines as represented
374above in the integer pointed to by
375.Fa state .
376.It Dv TIOCMBIS Fa int *state
377The bits in the integer pointed to by
378.Fa state
379represent modem state as described above, however the state is OR-ed
380in with the current state.
381.It Dv TIOCMBIC Fa int *state
382The bits in the integer pointed to by
383.Fa state
384represent modem state as described above, however each bit which is on
385in
386.Fa state
387is cleared in the terminal.
388.El
389.Sh SEE ALSO
390.Xr getty 8 ,
391.Xr ioctl 2 ,
392.Xr pty 4 ,
393.Xr stty 1 ,
394.Xr termios 4
395