linux-kernel - Multiple instances of devpts

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Message-ID: <48010583.3020403@zytor.com>
Date:	Sat, 12 Apr 2008 11:54:59 -0700
From:	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
To:	Al Viro <viro@...IV.linux.org.uk>
CC:	sukadev@...ibm.com, Andrew Morton <akpm@...l.org>,
	serue@...ibm.com, matthltc@...ibm.com,
	"Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@...ssion.com>,
	Pavel Emelyanov <xemul@...nvz.org>,
	Containers <containers@...ts.osdl.org>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Subject: Multiple instances of devpts

Al Viro wrote:
> 
> *boggle*
> 
> Care to explain how that "namespace" is different from devpts instance?
> IOW, why the devil do you guys ignore Occam's Razor?
> 
> Frankly, this nonsense has gone far enough; I can buy the need to compensate
> for shitty APIs (sockets, non-fs-based-IPC, etc.), but devpts *is* *a*
> *fucking* *filesystem*.  Already.  And as such it's already present in
> normal, real, we-really-shouldn't-have-any-other-if-not-for-ancient-stupidity
> namespace.
> 
> Why not simply allow independent instances of devpts and be done with that?

In particular:

/dev/ptmx can be a symlink ptmx -> pts/ptmx, and we add a ptmx instance 
inside the devpts filesystem.  Each devpts filesystem is responsible for 
its own pool of ptys, with own numbering, etc.

This does mean that entries in /dev/pts are more than just plain device 
nodes, which they are now (you can cp -a a device node from /dev/pts 
into another filesystem and it will still "just work"), but I doubt this 
actually matters to anyone.  If anyone cares, now I guess would be a 
good time to speak up.

	-hpa
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