TTY(4)                  NetBSD Kernel Interfaces Manual                 TTY(4)

NAME
     tty -- general terminal interface

SYNOPSIS
     #include <sys/ioctl.h>

DESCRIPTION
     This section describes the interface to the terminal drivers in the sys-
     tem.

   Terminal Special Files
     Each hardware terminal port on the system usually has two terminal spe-
     cial device files associated with it in the directory /dev/ (for example,
     /dev/tty03 and /dev/dty03).

     The /dev/ttyXX special file is used for dial-in modems and terminals.
     When a user logs into the system on one of these hardware terminal ports,
     the system has already opened the associated device and prepared the line
     for normal interactive use (see getty(8)).

     The /dev/dtyXX special file is a SunOS-compatible dial-out device.
     Unlike the dial-in device, opening the dial-out device never blocks.  If
     the corresponding dial-in device is already opened (not blocked in the
     open waiting for carrier), then the dial-out open will fail immediately;
     otherwise it will succeed immediately.  While the dial-out device is
     open, the dial-in device may not be opened.  If the dial-in open is
     blocking, it will wait until the dial-out device is closed (and carrier
     is detected); otherwise it will fail immediately.

     There is also a special case of a terminal file that connects not to a
     hardware terminal port, but to another program on the other side.  These
     special terminal devices are called ptys (pseudo terminals) and provide
     the mechanism necessary to give users the same interface to the system
     when logging in over a network (using rlogin(1), or telnet(1) for exam-
     ple.)  Even in these cases the details of how the terminal file was
     opened and set up is already handled by special software in the system.
     Thus, users do not normally need to worry about the details of how these
     lines are opened or used.  Also, these lines are often used for dialing
     out of a system (through an out-calling modem), but again the system pro-
     vides programs that hide the details of accessing these terminal special
     files (see tip(1)).

     When an interactive user logs in, the system prepares the line to behave
     in a certain way (called a line discipline), the particular details of
     which is described in stty(1) at the command level, and in termios(4) at
     the programming level.  A user may be concerned with changing settings
     associated with his particular login terminal and should refer to the
     preceding man pages for the common cases.  The remainder of this man page
     is concerned with describing details of using and controlling terminal
     devices at a low level, such as that possibly required by a program wish-
     ing to provide features similar to those provided by the system.

   Line disciplines
     A terminal file is used like any other file in the system in that it can
     be opened, read, and written to using standard system calls.  For each
     existing terminal file, there is a software processing module called a
     line discipline associated with it.  The line discipline essentially
     glues the low level device driver code with the high level generic inter-
     face routines (such as read(2) and write(2)), and is responsible for
     implementing the semantics associated with the device.  When a terminal
     file is first opened by a program, the default line discipline called the
     termios line discipline is associated with the file.  This is the primary
     line discipline that is used in most cases and provides the semantics
     that users normally associate with a terminal.  When the termios line
     discipline is in effect, the terminal file behaves and is operated
     according to the rules described in termios(4).  Please refer to that man
     page for a full description of the terminal semantics.  The operations
     described here generally represent features common across all line
     disciplines, however some of these calls may not make sense in conjunc-
     tion with a line discipline other than termios, and some may not be sup-
     ported by the underlying hardware (or lack thereof, as in the case of
     ptys).

   Terminal File Operations
     All of the following operations are invoked using the ioctl(2) system
     call.  Refer to that man page for a description of the request and argp
     parameters.  In addition to the ioctl requests defined here, the specific
     line discipline in effect will define other requests specific to it
     (actually termios(4) defines them as function calls, not ioctl requests.)
     The following section lists the available ioctl requests.  The name of
     the request, a description of its purpose, and the typed argp parameter
     (if any) are listed.  For example, the first entry says

           TIOCSLINED char name[32]

     and would be called on the terminal associated with file descriptor zero
     by the following code fragment:

             ioctl(0, TIOCSLINED, "termios");

   Terminal File Request Descriptions
     TIOCSLINED char name[32]
                 Change to the new line discipline called name.

     TIOCGLINED char name[32]
                 Return the current line discipline in the string pointed to
                 by name.

     TIOCSBRK void
                 Set the terminal hardware into BREAK condition.

     TIOCCBRK void
                 Clear the terminal hardware BREAK condition.

     TIOCSDTR void
                 Assert data terminal ready (DTR).

     TIOCCDTR void
                 Clear data terminal ready (DTR).

     TIOCGPGRP int *tpgrp
                 Return the current process group the terminal is associated
                 with in the integer pointed to by tpgrp.  This is the under-
                 lying call that implements the tcgetpgrp(3) call.

     TIOCSPGRP int *tpgrp
                 Associate the terminal with the process group (as an integer)
                 pointed to by tpgrp.  This is the underlying call that imple-
                 ments the tcsetpgrp(3) call.

     TIOCGETA struct termios *term
                 Place the current value of the termios state associated with
                 the device in the termios structure pointed to by term.  This
                 is the underlying call that implements the tcgetattr(3) call.

     TIOCSETA struct termios *term
                 Set the termios state associated with the device immediately.
                 This is the underlying call that implements the tcsetattr(3)
                 call with the TCSANOW option.

     TIOCSETAW struct termios *term
                 First wait for any output to complete, then set the termios
                 state associated with the device.  This is the underlying
                 call that implements the tcsetattr(3) call with the TCSADRAIN
                 option.

     TIOCSETAF struct termios *term
                 First wait for any output to complete, clear any pending
                 input, then set the termios state associated with the device.
                 This is the underlying call that implements the tcsetattr(3)
                 call with the TCSAFLUSH option.

     TIOCOUTQ int *num
                 Place the current number of characters in the output queue in
                 the integer pointed to by num.

     TIOCSTI char *cp
                 Simulate typed input.  Pretend as if the terminal received
                 the character pointed to by cp.

     TIOCNOTTY void
                 This call is obsolete but left for compatibility.  In the
                 past, when a process that didn't have a controlling terminal
                 (see The Controlling Terminal in termios(4)) first opened a
                 terminal device, it acquired that terminal as its controlling
                 terminal.  For some programs this was a hazard as they didn't
                 want a controlling terminal in the first place, and this pro-
                 vided a mechanism to disassociate the controlling terminal
                 from the calling process.  It must be called by opening the
                 file /dev/tty and calling TIOCNOTTY on that file descriptor.

                 The current system does not allocate a controlling terminal
                 to a process on an open() call: there is a specific ioctl
                 called TIOCSCTTY to make a terminal the controlling terminal.
                 In addition, a program can fork() and call the setsid() sys-
                 tem call which will place the process into its own session -
                 which has the effect of disassociating it from the control-
                 ling terminal.  This is the new and preferred method for pro-
                 grams to lose their controlling terminal.

     TIOCSTOP void
                 Stop output on the terminal (like typing ^S at the keyboard).

     TIOCSTART void
                 Start output on the terminal (like typing ^Q at the key-
                 board).

     TIOCSCTTY void
                 Make the terminal the controlling terminal for the process
                 (the process must not currently have a controlling terminal).

     TIOCDRAIN void
                 Wait until all output is drained.

     TIOCEXCL void
                 Set exclusive use on the terminal.  No further opens are per-
                 mitted except by root.  Of course, this means that programs
                 that are run by root (or setuid) will not obey the exclusive
                 setting - which limits the usefulness of this feature.

     TIOCNXCL void
                 Clear exclusive use of the terminal.  Further opens are per-
                 mitted.

     TIOCFLUSH int *what
                 If the value of the int pointed to by what contains the FREAD
                 bit as defined in <sys/fcntl.h>, then all characters in the
                 input queue are cleared.  If it contains the FWRITE bit, then
                 all characters in the output queue are cleared.  If the value
                 of the integer is zero, then it behaves as if both the FREAD
                 and FWRITE bits were set (i.e. clears both queues).

     TIOCGWINSZ struct winsize *ws
                 Put the window size information associated with the terminal
                 in the winsize structure pointed to by ws.  The window size
                 structure contains the number of rows and columns (and pixels
                 if appropriate) of the devices attached to the terminal.  It
                 is set by user software and is the means by which most full-
                 screen oriented programs determine the screen size.  The
                 winsize structure is defined in <sys/ioctl.h>.

     TIOCSWINSZ struct winsize *ws
                 Set the window size associated with the terminal to be the
                 value in the winsize structure pointed to by ws (see above).

     TIOCCONS int *on
                 If on points to a non-zero integer, redirect kernel console
                 output (kernel printf's) to this terminal.  If on points to a
                 zero integer, redirect kernel console output back to the nor-
                 mal console.  This is usually used on workstations to redi-
                 rect kernel messages to a particular window.

     TIOCMSET int *state
                 The integer pointed to by state contains bits that correspond
                 to modem state.  Following is a list of defined variables and
                 the modem state they represent:

                 TIOCM_LE   Line Enable.
                 TIOCM_DTR  Data Terminal Ready.
                 TIOCM_RTS  Request To Send.
                 TIOCM_ST   Secondary Transmit.
                 TIOCM_SR   Secondary Receive.
                 TIOCM_CTS  Clear To Send.
                 TIOCM_CAR  Carrier Detect.
                 TIOCM_CD   Carrier Detect (synonym).
                 TIOCM_RNG  Ring Indication.
                 TIOCM_RI   Ring Indication (synonym).
                 TIOCM_DSR  Data Set Ready.

                 This call sets the terminal modem state to that represented
                 by state.  Not all terminals may support this.

     TIOCMGET int *state
                 Return the current state of the terminal modem lines as rep-
                 resented above in the integer pointed to by state.

     TIOCMBIS int *state
                 The bits in the integer pointed to by state represent modem
                 state as described above, however the state is OR-ed in with
                 the current state.

     TIOCMBIC int *state
                 The bits in the integer pointed to by state represent modem
                 state as described above, however each bit which is on in
                 state is cleared in the terminal.

     TIOCSFLAGS int *state
                 The bits in the integer pointed to by state contain bits that
                 correspond to serial port state.  Following is a list of
                 defined flag values and the serial port state they represent:

                 TIOCFLAG_SOFTCAR  Ignore hardware carrier.
                 TIOCFLAG_CLOCAL   Set the termios(4) CLOCAL flag on open.
                 TIOCFLAG_CRTSCTS  Set the termios(4) CRTSCTS flag on open.
                 TIOCFLAG_MDMBUF   Set the termios(4) MDMBUF flag on open.

                 This call sets the serial port state to that represented by
                 state.  Not all serial ports may support this.

     TIOCGFLAGS int *state
                 Return the current state of the serial port as represented
                 above in the integer pointed to by state.

COMPATIBILITY
     Two ioctls are maintained for backwards compatibility.  They provide
     methods to get and set the current line discipline, but are not extensi-
     ble.

     TIOCSETD int *ldisc
                 Change to the new line discipline pointed to by ldisc.  The
                 old list of available line disciplines are listed in
                 <sys/ttycom.h> and are:

                 TTYDISC     Termios interactive line discipline.
                 TABLDISC    Tablet line discipline.
                 SLIPDISC    Serial IP line discipline.
                 PPPDISC     Point to Point Protocol line discipline.
                 STRIPDISC   Starmode Radio IP line discipline.

     TIOCGETD int *ldisc
                 Return the current line discipline in the integer pointed to
                 by ldisc.

SEE ALSO
     stty(1), ioctl(2), tcgetattr(3), tcsetattr(3), ttyaction(3), pty(4),
     termios(4), ttys(5), getty(8), linedisc(9)

HISTORY
     Separate dial-out device files were implemented in SunOS 4.  They were
     cloned by Charles M. Hannum for NetBSD 1.4.

NetBSD 5.0_STABLE               October 7, 2006              NetBSD 5.0_STABLE
