PTYGET(8)

NAME
ptyget - allocate a pty

SYNOPSIS

ptyget {subprogram} {args...}

DESCRIPTION

ptyget allocates a new pty, makes the master side available as fd 4 (non-blocking), makes the slave side available as fd 5, and runs subprogram. It passes subprogram a TTY environment variable giving the name of the pty slave.

On current systems, ptyget is setuid root and setgid tty. It changes the ownership of the pty slave to the user, so that the user can open it, and makes it mode 600, so that nobody else can open it. It also puts the pty slave under group tty. It will refuse to run if these protections fail.

ptyget does not make any provisions to clean up when the user finishes using the pty.

SYSTEM-SPECIFIC NOTES

On systems with the POSIX 2001 compliant posix_openpt(3), ptsname(3), grantpt(3), and unlockpt(3), functions, ptyget doesn't know nor care where the master or slave actually are. It uses the library functions to do most of the work.

On other pty/tty-based systems (e.g., BSD 4.4), the slave is /dev/ttyxy where xy are two characters. ptyget searches through masters starting from a random point (with a random increment to avoid secondary clustering). ptyget relies for security on the kernel's revoke(3) function.

On other ptmx/pts-based systems (e.g., Solaris), the slave is /dev/pts/N where N is a nonnegative integer. ptyget does not invoke /usr/lib/pt_chmod. ptyget relies for security on the kernel's built-in slave locking.

HISTORY

ptyget was originally part of Daniel J. Bernstein's ptyget toolset in 1996.

AUTHOR

Original code and documentation by Daniel J. Bernstein. Documentation modernizations by Jonathan de Boyne Pollard.