FreeBSD 6.0 default pty/tty-limit (256) OFF!

[Robert Watson]

On Sun, 22 Jan 2006, Robert Watson wrote:

> FYI, there's also a tty_pts.c floating around, based on some work I did at 
> McAfee a couple of years ago, that implements /dev/ptmx and /dev/pts for 
> FreeBSD.  Among other things, it removes the limit on the number pty's, and 
> adopts the Sys V pty naming convention.  While there are upsides and 
> downsides to the naming convention, it does attempt to normalize the way we 
> handle pty's, as well as removing the requirement for root privilege in 
> order to allocate and properly protect a pty.  I have an older version at 
> http://www.watson.org/~robert/freebsd/pts/.  However, it's fairly dated, and 
> may not work due to other changes since it was written (I've not looked to 
> see).  I've tried several times to trick developers into picking it up and 
> doing the last remaining work to make it real -- largely what's required is 
> work on the forward/backward compatibility issue, that and extensive testing 
> and a security audit.  It would be nice to ship 7.x with these changes as it 
> would resolve a lot of problems.

As a follow-up, Olivier Houchard just committed tty_pts.c and supporting libc 
pieces to 7-CURRENT; you can find details in the HEADS UP post on 
freebsd-current.  By default the limit is 1000 pty's, but that can be 
increased.  Testing most welcome.

Robert N M Watson