Re: Announcing ptyfix

[Florian Weimer <Florian.Weimer () RUS UNI-STUTTGART DE>]

Paul Szabo <psz () MATHS USYD EDU AU> writes:

> The privileged (setuid root) command ptyfix is used from within executables
> that use the openpty() call. An example is xterm: with this helper, xterm
> itself does not need to be setuid.

The correct fix is to implement SysV-style PTYs.  I think they are
required by SuSv2 as well.  Only some BSD systems do not provide this
kind of PTYs, almost all other flavors do.

> Currently ptyfix works only on Compaq Tru64 UNIX (DEC OSF/1) machines.

The helper application is not required, you should open /dev/ptmx or
/dev/ptmx_bsd and use grantpt() and unlockpt().  (The True64 5.1
manpage suggests that openpty() already uses SysV PTYs, but that's not
mentioned in earlier versions, such as DIGITAL UNIX 4.0D.)

--
Florian Weimer                    Florian.Weimer () RUS Uni-Stuttgart DE
University of Stuttgart           http://cert.uni-stuttgart.de/
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