Re: 2.6-test4 Traditional pty and devfs

[Albert Cahalan <albert@users.sf.net>]

Christoph Hellwig writes:
> On Tue, Sep 02, 2003 at 10:43:40AM -0700, Andrew Morton wrote:

>>> That's the magic use uid/gid of the process calling
>>> devfs_Register flag I killed.  With a big HEADSUP
>>> and explanation on lkml..
>>
>> So what is the impact here?  That libc5 will break if
>> the user is using devfs and old-style pty's?
>
> If he removed the pt_chown logic that is present with a
> stock libc5, yes.  I wouldn't know why someone would do
> that, though.

The problem may be more serious. There are lots of
apps that use the old-style PTYs w/o any libc help.

a. because that's the historic BSD way
b. so the user can choose a specific pty

For example, there's a "remserial" program
that abuses a PTY for giving access to a
serial port over the network. Apps trying to
use the port work pretty well, without any need
for source code changes or new kernel drivers.