CONS(3) Library Functions Manual CONS(3)
NAME
cons - console, clocks, process/process group ids, user, null, klog, stats, lights, noise, sysstat, hz, swap, key, hostowner, hostdomain,
authenticate, authcheck, authenticator
SYNOPSIS
bind #c /dev
/dev/authcheck
/dev/authenticate
/dev/authenticator
/dev/clock
/dev/cons
/dev/consctl
/dev/cputime
/dev/hostdomain
/dev/hostowner
/dev/hz
/dev/key
/dev/klog
/dev/lights
/dev/msec
/dev/noise
/dev/null
/dev/pgrpid
/dev/pid
/dev/ppid
/dev/swap
/dev/sysname
/dev/sysstat
/dev/time
/dev/user
DESCRIPTION
The console device serves a one-level directory giving access to the console and miscellaneous information.
Reading the cons file returns characters typed on the keyboard. Normally, characters are buffered to enable erase and kill processing. A
control-U, typed at the keyboard kills the current input line (removes all characters from the buffer of characters not yet read via cons),
and a backspace erases the previous non-kill, non-erase character from the input buffer. Killing and erasing only delete characters back
to, but not including, the last newline. Characters typed at the keyboard actually produce 16-bit runes (see utf(6)), but the runes are
translated into the variable-length UTF encoding (see utf(6)) before putting them into the buffer. A read(2) of length greater than zero
causes the process to wait until a newline or a ends the buffer, and then returns as much of the buffer as the argument to read allows, but
only up to one complete line. A terminating is not put into the buffer. If part of the line remains, the next read will return bytes from
that remainder and not part of any new line that has been typed since.
If the string rawon has been written to the consctl file and the file is still open, cons is in raw mode: characters are not echoed as they
are typed, backspace and are not treated specially, and characters are available to read as soon as they are typed. Ordinary mode is reen-
tered when rawoff is written to consctl or this file is closed.
A write (see read(2)) to cons causes the characters to be printed on the console screen.
The null file throws away anything written to it and always returns zero bytes when read.
The klog file contains the tail of messages written by kernel logging statements.
Writing a number (as plain text) to the lights device directs any lights that are available to turn on and off. The bits of the number are
mapped to the lights in a processor-dependent way.
Writing two blank- or tab-separated numbers to the noise device causes the machine to make a tone, if possible. The first number is the
frequency, in Hertz, and the second is the duration, in milliseconds.
The hostdomain file contains the name of the authentication domain that this host belongs to; see auth(6). Only the user named in
/dev/hostowner may write this.
The hostowner file contains the name of the user that owns the console device files. The hostowner also has group permissions for any
local devices.
The key file is used to set the DES key used for encryption. Each machine has one key. Only the user named in /dev/hostowner may write
this.
The authenticate file is used to authenticate new users to the kernel; see auth(6). After an open, the first read returns a ticket request
message of the following form:
char num;
char authid[28];
char authdom[48];
char chal[8];
char hostid[28];
char uid[28];
Here num is 1, authid and hostid are the contents of hostowner, and authdom is the contents of hostdomain. Chal is an 8 byte random chal-
lenge created by the kernel. A subsequent write of a valid ticket encrypted with the key contained in key changes the user name of the
writing process to the value of suid in the ticket. The ticket is of the form:
char num;
char chal[8];
char cuid[28];
char suid[28];
char noncekey[7];
The ticket is valid if num is 64 and chal matches the challenge in the ticket request. Writing an invalid ticket generates an error. A
read following a successful write yields an authenticator message of the form:
char num;
char chal[8];
char id[4];
The authenticator is encrypted in noncekey from the ticket. Num is 66, id[0-4] are 0, and chal matches the challenge in the original
ticket request.
The authenticator file is used to generate an authenticator from a ticket. One writes a ticket encrypted with the key contained in key,
followed, optionally, by a 4-byte id; a missing id defaults to zero. If the client uid matches the current user, a subsequent read yields
an authenticator for that ticket with the given id.
The authcheck file is used to match authenticators to tickets. A write of an authenticator appended to the end of a ticket succeeds if the
ticket is encrypted with the key contained in key, the ticket's num is 65, the authenticator is encrypted with the ticket's noncekey, the
authenticator's and ticket's chal's match, the authenticator's num is 66, and the authenticator's id is 0. Alternatively, the write may
consist of ticket, authenticator, chal, and id, in which case the given chal and id must match those of the authenticator.
The user file contains the name of the user associated with the current process. Any process can change to user none by writing none to
this file.
The rest of the files contain (mostly) read-only strings. Each string has a fixed length: a read(2) of more than that gives a result of
that fixed length (the result does not include a terminating zero byte); a read of less than that length leaves the file offset so the rest
of the string (but no more) will be read the next time. To reread the file without closing it, seek must be used to reset the offset.
When the file contains numeric data, each number is formatted in decimal as an 11-digit number with leading blanks and one trailing blank:
twelve bytes total.
The cputime file holds 6 numbers, containing the time in milliseconds that the current process has spent in user mode, system calls, real
elapsed time, and then the time spent, by exited children and their descendants, in user mode, system calls, and real elapsed time.
The clock file holds two numbers: the number of clock ticks since booting followed by the number of clock ticks in a second.
The sysname file holds the textual name of the machine, e.g. kremvax, if known.
The sysstat file holds 8 numbers: processor number, context switches, interrupts, system calls, page faults, tlb faults, tlb purges, and
load average. The load average is in units of milli-CPUs and is decayed over time; the others are total counts from boot time. If the
machine is a multiprocessor, sysstat holds one line per processor. Writing anything to sysstat resets all of the counts on all processors.
The swap device holds a string of the form
m1/m2 memory s1/s2 swap
These give, for each of internal memory and the swapping area, the number of pages used and the total available. These numbers are not
blank padded. To turn on swapping, write to swap the textual file descriptor number of a file or device on which to swap. See swap(8).
The other files served by the cons device are all single numbers:
hz frequency of the system clock
msec number of milliseconds since booting
pgrpid process group number
pid process number
ppid parent's process number
time number of seconds since the epoch 00:00:00 GMT, Jan. 1, 1970. (Can be written once, to set at boot time.)
SEE ALSO
bit(3), keyboard(6), auth(6), utf(6), swap(8)
SOURCE
/sys/src/9/port/devcons.c
BUGS
For debugging, two control-T's followed by a letter generate console output: prints data about processes, prints data about streams, prints
data about the mount device, prints data about the bitblt device, and prints data about kernel memory allocation.
The system can be rebooted by typing
CONS(3)