Path: utzoo!censor!becker!bdb
From: bdb@becker.UUCP (Bruce Becker)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: invisible to who(1)
Keywords: login who finger invisible tty
Message-ID: <191@becker.UUCP>
Date: 30 Dec 88 19:29:22 GMT
References: <1499@tuhold> <446@thirdi.UUCP>
Reply-To: bdb@becker.UUCP (Bruce Becker)
Organization: G. T. S., Toronto, Ontario
Lines: 41

In article <446@thirdi.UUCP> peter@thirdi.UUCP (Peter Rowell) writes:
+-----------------------
|In article <1499@tuhold> gfl@tuhold (Gerhard Fleischanderl) writes:
|>
|>On a dial-in line at a MicroVAX-II (Ultrix 2.0), we encounter
|>a strange phenomenon:
|>A login on this line (tty03) is not recognized by who(1) nor finger(1).
|>However, the login-shell is shown for TTY 03 by ps(1).
|>
|>There is a hard link between /dev/tty03 and /dev/ttyd0.
|> ...
|The "fix" (at least for us) is to *rename* /dev/tty03 to /dev/ttyd0,
|not just link it (which seems like the perfectly reasonable thing to
|do).  There appears to be something funny about how "who" figures out
|what is going on and it seems to be upset if there is more than one
|device with the same major/minor numbers.
|
|Are there any guru's who can explain this? Fix this?
+-----------------------                   /^^^^^^^^\
	Why fix what ain't broke? ________/          \_________
	The explanation about the routines finding the first
	/dev directory entry whose major/minor device #
	matches seems perfectly reasonable.
	It's a feature, not a bug, and it doesn't seem to
	be a particularly contrary one either. It doesn't
	hurt anything to rename them - no information is lost,
	due to the aforementioned device #'s which can be
	found by a "ls -l"...

+-----------------------
|Peter Rowell				"He found the missing link!"
|Third Eye Software, Inc.		(415) 321-0967
|Menlo Park, CA  94025			peter@thirdi.UUCP
+-----------------------

Cheers,
-- 
   _  _/\	Bruce Becker	Toronto, Ont.
   \`o O|	Internet: bdb@becker.UUCP, bruce@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu
    \(")/	BitNet:   BECKER@HUMBER.BITNET
---mm-U-mm---	"The OSF is suffering from Penix envy" - Rocky Raccoon