not able to output anything to /dev/ttyv8?

[Zhang Weiwu]

On Wed, 2007-06-06 at 03:14 -0400, Michael Hauber wrote:
> On Tuesday 05 June 2007 11:23:04 pm Zhang Weiwu wrote:
> > Dear list
> >
> > On Gentoo Linux I used to redirect the output of a certain app
> > to /dev/tty10 and switch to tty10 (by using Alt+F10)
> >
> > this is useful to keep watching the application.
> >
> > this doesn't work on FreeBSD. I can do
> > # ehco hello > /dev/ttyv8
> > # ehco hello > /dev/ttyv9
> > # ehco hello > /dev/ttyva
> >
> > But Alt+F9, Alt+F10, Alt+F11 only cause the machine to beep
> >
> > Possible to use /dev/ttyv9 for output device in FreeBSD? Thanks in
> > advance.
> >
> > Best regards
> 
> try 'man ttys' and edit your /etc/ttys.

It doesn't make me nervous when I have to RTFM as I did many times and,
now I am RTFMing, but, I got a feeling I am entering a "maze" filled
with things I don't know: termcap, bound rate...

Anyway this is how I did it after RTFM, stupid but works:
1) go to /etc/gettytab and add this:

W|Wd|Wd console:\
        :ht:np:al=root:sp#9600:

2) run /usr/libexec/getty Wd ttyv8

3) now you can run your application and redirect to ttyv8

# app > /dev/ttyv8

This is ugly, but it works. I'd very like to see better solutions.

If you don't add that line to /etc/gettytab, run 

/usr/libexec/getty Pc ttyv8

will get you a ttyv8 console that you can redirect output to, but that
console seems ignore carrier return / line feed, making the output
difficult to read.

P.S. I'd very much like the console ttyv8 can be at a speed of 9600, now
it output anything almost instantly, so sometimes I cannot watch the
output scroll with my eyes (by the special nature of the application I
am running, glance over the output of my application when I am free can
help me find a lot of useful information). The application produce less
then 20MB of data, so 9600 kbps is a good measure to control the pace of
output.