linux man page for openpty

OPENPTY(3)						     Linux Programmer's Manual							OPENPTY(3)

NAME
       openpty, login_tty, forkpty - tty utility functions

SYNOPSIS
       #include <pty.h>

       int openpty(int *amaster, int *aslave, char *name,
		   const struct termios *termp,
		   const struct winsize *winp);

       pid_t forkpty(int *amaster, char *name,
		     const struct termios *termp,
		     const struct winsize *winp);

       #include <utmp.h>

       int login_tty(int fd);

       Link with -lutil.

DESCRIPTION
       The  openpty() function finds an available pseudo-terminal and returns file descriptors for the master and slave in amaster and aslave.	If
       name is not NULL, the filename of the slave is returned in name.  If termp is not NULL, the terminal parameters of the slave will be set to
       the values in termp.  If winp is not NULL, the window size of the slave will be set to the values in winp.

       The  login_tty() function prepares for a login on the tty fd (which may be a real tty device, or the slave of a pseudo-terminal as returned
       by openpty()) by creating a new session, making fd the controlling terminal for the calling process, setting fd to be the  standard  input,
       output, and error streams of the current process, and closing fd.

       The  forkpty()  function  combines  openpty(),  fork(2),  and login_tty() to create a new process operating in a pseudo-terminal.  The file
       descriptor of the master side of the pseudo-terminal is returned in amaster, and the filename of the slave in name if it is not NULL.   The
       termp and winp arguments, if not NULL, will determine the terminal attributes and window size of the slave side of the pseudo-terminal.

RETURN VALUE
       If  a  call  to	openpty(), login_tty(), or forkpty() is not successful, -1 is returned and errno is set to indicate the error.	Otherwise,
       openpty(), login_tty(), and the child process of forkpty() return 0, and the parent process of forkpty() returns  the  process  ID  of  the
       child process.

ERRORS
       openpty() will fail if:

       ENOENT There are no available ttys.

       login_tty() will fail if ioctl(2) fails to set fd to the controlling terminal of the calling process.

       forkpty() will fail if either openpty() or fork(2) fails.

CONFORMING TO
       These are BSD functions, present in libc5 and glibc2.  They are not standardized in POSIX.

NOTES
       The const modifiers were added to the structure pointer arguments of openpty() and forkpty() in glibc 2.8.

       In  versions  of  glibc	before	2.0.92,  openpty()  returns  file descriptors for a BSD pseudo-terminal pair; since glibc 2.0.92, it first
       attempts to open a Unix 98 pseudo-terminal pair, and falls back to opening a BSD pseudo-terminal pair if that fails.

BUGS
       Nobody knows how much space should be reserved for name.  So, calling openpty() or forkpty() with non-NULL name may not be secure.

SEE ALSO
       fork(2), ttyname(3), pty(7)

COLOPHON
       This page is part of release 3.27 of the Linux man-pages project.  A description of the project, and information about reporting bugs,  can
       be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

GNU
								    2010-06-13								OPENPTY(3)