From: jrs@world.std.com (Rick Sladkey) Subject: Re: BUG in 0.99-p5 ??? Date: 14 Feb 1993 05:00:45 GMT
>>>>> On 14 Feb 1993 02:19:14 GMT,
>>>>> oreillym@tartarus.uwa.edu.au (Michael O'Reilly) said:
Michael> Rick Sladkey (jrs@world.std.com) wrote:
Michael> Linux 0.99.5 disabled the ability for a program to aquire a
Michael> pty master device as a controlling terminal. I think this is
Michael> a mistake. Here is a patch.
Michael> Woah!!!! This is NOT a mistake. You should never be able to
Michael> aquire a pty MASTER as a controlling tty. Only slaves. The
Michael> master device is NOT a tty. If the program breaks with the
Michael> correct behaviour, then the program is broken, not linux.
I agree with you on first principles, however in the name of
compatibility I think we should allow it. I don't know who disallowed
it (probably Ted?) or why but it breaks rlogin and the comments in
rlogin indicate that BSD allows it. Don't ask me why.
>From rlogind.c:protocol():
+-----
| /*
| * Must ignore SIGTTOU, otherwise we'll stop
| * when we try and set slave pty's window shape
| * (our controlling tty is the master pty).
| */
+-----
Perhaps we must give up BSD compatibility in this case?
The alternative is messy but not impossible.