Re: something funny about tty's on 2.6.4-rc1-mm1

[H. Peter Anvin]

Edgar Toernig wrote:
> IMHO more important: what about utmp?  It would become terribly
> large.  Beside that, such huge numbers won't fit into ut_id.
>
> Ciao, ET.
>
> --[man utmp extract]--
> ...
>     char ut_id[4];     /* init id or abbrev. ttyname */
> ...
>     xterm(1)  and  other  terminal emulators directly create a
>     USER_PROCESS record and generate the ut_id  by  using  the
>     last  two  letters  of  /dev/ttyp%c  or  by  using p%d for
>     /dev/pts/%d.  If they find a  DEAD_PROCESS  for  this  id,
>     they  recycle  it,  otherwise they create a new entry.
> ...

That's broken for anything more than 1000 ptys, OR if you're using BSD 
and Unix98 ptys at the same time.

In other words, it's totally broken.

	-hpa
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