Provided by:
freebsd-manpages_7.2-1_all 
NAME
pty - pseudo terminal driver
SYNOPSIS
device pty
DESCRIPTION
The pty driver provides support for a device-pair termed a pseudo
terminal. A pseudo terminal is a pair of character devices, a master
device and a slave device. The slave device provides to a process an
interface identical to that described in tty(4). However, whereas all
other devices which provide the interface described in tty(4) have a
hardware device of some sort behind them, the slave device has, instead,
another process manipulating it through the master half of the pseudo
terminal. That is, anything written on the master device is given to the
slave device as input and anything written on the slave device is
presented as input on the master device.
The following ioctl(2) calls apply only to pseudo terminals:
TIOCSTOP Stops output to a terminal (e.g. like typing ‘^S’). Takes no
parameter.
TIOCSTART Restarts output (stopped by TIOCSTOP or by typing ‘^S’).
Takes no parameter.
TIOCPKT Enable/disable packet mode. Packet mode is enabled by
specifying (by reference) a nonzero parameter and disabled by
specifying (by reference) a zero parameter. When applied to
the master side of a pseudo terminal, each subsequent read(2)
from the terminal will return data written on the slave part
of the pseudo terminal preceded by a zero byte (symbolically
defined as TIOCPKT_DATA), or a single byte reflecting control
status information. In the latter case, the byte is an
inclusive-or of zero or more of the bits:
TIOCPKT_FLUSHREAD whenever the read queue for the terminal
is flushed.
TIOCPKT_FLUSHWRITE whenever the write queue for the terminal
is flushed.
TIOCPKT_STOP whenever output to the terminal is
stopped a la ‘^S’.
TIOCPKT_START whenever output to the terminal is
restarted.
TIOCPKT_DOSTOP whenever t_stopc is ‘^S’ and t_startc is
‘^Q’.
TIOCPKT_NOSTOP whenever the start and stop characters
are not ‘^S/^Q’.
While this mode is in use, the presence of control status
information to be read from the master side may be detected
by a select(2) for exceptional conditions.
This mode is used by rlogin(1) and rlogind(8) to implement a
remote-echoed, locally ‘^S/^Q’ flow-controlled remote login
with proper back-flushing of output; it can be used by other
similar programs.
TIOCUCNTL Enable/disable a mode that allows a small number of simple
user ioctl(2) commands to be passed through the pseudo-
terminal, using a protocol similar to that of TIOCPKT. The
TIOCUCNTL and TIOCPKT modes are mutually exclusive. This
mode is enabled from the master side of a pseudo terminal by
specifying (by reference) a nonzero parameter and disabled by
specifying (by reference) a zero parameter. Each subsequent
read(2) from the master side will return data written on the
slave part of the pseudo terminal preceded by a zero byte, or
a single byte reflecting a user control operation on the
slave side. A user control command consists of a special
ioctl(2) operation with no data; the command is given as
UIOCCMD(n), where n is a number in the range 1-255. The
operation value n will be received as a single byte on the
next read(2) from the master side. The ioctl(2) UIOCCMD(0)
is a no-op that may be used to probe for the existence of
this facility. As with TIOCPKT mode, command operations may
be detected with a select(2) for exceptional conditions.
There is currently two pty systems available: the original BSD pty, and a
SysVR4 pts-like implementation. It is possible to switch between the two
implementations by setting the kern.pts.enable sysctl. Setting it to 0
will use the BSD pty, to non-zero the pts implementation. It defaults to
0. It is possible to set the maximum number of ptys which can be
allocated at the same time with the kern.pts.max sysctl. It defaults to
1000. It is not recommended to use more than 1000 pseudo-terminals, as
all software which use utmp(5) will not be able to handle pseudo-
terminals with number superior to 999.
The pts implementation also supports the TIOCGPTN ioctl(2) call, which
takes a pointer to an unsigned int as a parameter and provides the number
of the pty.
FILES
The files used by the BSD pseudo terminals implementation are:
/dev/pty[p-sP-S][0-9a-v] master pseudo terminals
/dev/tty[p-sP-S][0-9a-v] slave pseudo terminals
The files used by the pts implementation are:
/dev/ptmx control device, returns a file descriptor to a new master
pseudo terminal when opened.
/dev/pty[num] master pseudo terminals
/dev/pts/[num] slave pseudo terminals
DIAGNOSTICS
None.
SEE ALSO
tty(4)
HISTORY
The pty driver appeared in 4.2BSD.