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Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 11:16:35 +0100 (BST)
From: Nik Clayton <nik@blueberry.co.uk>
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Subject: conf/1162: As shipped, ownership of /dev/console is set incorrectly
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>Number:         1162
>Category:       conf
>Synopsis:       As shipped, ownership of /dev/console is set incorrectly
>Confidential:   yes
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       low
>Responsible:    freebsd-bugs
>State:          open
>Class:          doc-bug
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Mon Apr 29 03:20:00 PDT 1996
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Nik Clayton
>Organization:
Blueberry Design                  
>Release:        FreeBSD 2.1-STABLE i386
>Environment:

	2.1-stable, supped a couple of weeks ago.

>Description:

	As shipped, logging in to FreeBSD does not set the permissions on
	/dev/console correctly. Which means that people running X by doing
	'startx', rather than 'xdm' cannot run programs like 'xconsole' or 
	'xterm -C' correctly, because of permission problems.

        Since I mentioned it on the -questions mailing list a couple of
	other people have mentioned the same problem. So I'm sending in 
	this send-pr, with a couple of possible remedies so that someone
	more knowledgable than myself can DoTheRightThing.

>How-To-Repeat:

        Run 'xconsole' or 'xterm -C' after starting X with 'startx'. You'll
	get 'permission denied' errors.

>Fix:
	
        The correct fix is to have a line like

	     /dev/ttyv0 0600 /dev/console

	in /etc/fbtab (thanks to Gary Palmer for pointing this out). The
	real problem seems to be that it's quite tricky to find this 
	information.

	Obviously, the simplest fix is to have the default /etc/fbtab 
	(which has the line in it, but commented out) have the comment
	removed. But I don't know what this breaks.

	Or, the X port could be slightly modified so that after X has
	been built and installed the user is prompted about /etc/fbtab
	and what they'll need to do to get /dev/console working as expected.

	Or, a question along the lines of "I get permissions errors on
	/dev/console when I run 'xterm -C' or 'xconsole' in X" could
	be added to the FAQ. The answer is as simple as "man fbtab".

	Or maybe there should be man page for the console device, in which
	this scenario is mentioned.

	Or a comment in /dev/MAKEDEV?

        As I say, I don't consider myself knowledgable enough to push any
	of these as the 'one' solution. But I'm sending this pr so that
	someone else can.
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: