linux/Documentation/filesystems/devpts.txt
Eric W. Biederman eedf265aa0 devpts: Make each mount of devpts an independent filesystem.
The /dev/ptmx device node is changed to lookup the directory entry "pts"
in the same directory as the /dev/ptmx device node was opened in.  If
there is a "pts" entry and that entry is a devpts filesystem /dev/ptmx
uses that filesystem.  Otherwise the open of /dev/ptmx fails.

The DEVPTS_MULTIPLE_INSTANCES configuration option is removed, so that
userspace can now safely depend on each mount of devpts creating a new
instance of the filesystem.

Each mount of devpts is now a separate and equal filesystem.

Reserved ttys are now available to all instances of devpts where the
mounter is in the initial mount namespace.

A new vfs helper path_pts is introduced that finds a directory entry
named "pts" in the directory of the passed in path, and changes the
passed in path to point to it.  The helper path_pts uses a function
path_parent_directory that was factored out of follow_dotdot.

In the implementation of devpts:
 - devpts_mnt is killed as it is no longer meaningful if all mounts of
   devpts are equal.
 - pts_sb_from_inode is replaced by just inode->i_sb as all cached
   inodes in the tty layer are now from the devpts filesystem.
 - devpts_add_ref is rolled into the new function devpts_ptmx.  And the
   unnecessary inode hold is removed.
 - devpts_del_ref is renamed devpts_release and reduced to just a
   deacrivate_super.
 - The newinstance mount option continues to be accepted but is now
   ignored.

In devpts_fs.h definitions for when !CONFIG_UNIX98_PTYS are removed as
they are never used.

Documentation/filesystems/devices.txt is updated to describe the current
situation.

This has been verified to work properly on openwrt-15.05, centos5,
centos6, centos7, debian-6.0.2, debian-7.9, debian-8.2, ubuntu-14.04.3,
ubuntu-15.10, fedora23, magia-5, mint-17.3, opensuse-42.1,
slackware-14.1, gentoo-20151225 (13.0?), archlinux-2015-12-01.  With the
caveat that on centos6 and on slackware-14.1 that there wind up being
two instances of the devpts filesystem mounted on /dev/pts, the lower
copy does not end up getting used.

Signed-off-by: "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@xmission.com>
Cc: Greg KH <greg@kroah.com>
Cc: Peter Hurley <peter@hurleysoftware.com>
Cc: Peter Anvin <hpa@zytor.com>
Cc: Andy Lutomirski <luto@amacapital.net>
Cc: Al Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Cc: Serge Hallyn <serge.hallyn@ubuntu.com>
Cc: Willy Tarreau <w@1wt.eu>
Cc: Aurelien Jarno <aurelien@aurel32.net>
Cc: One Thousand Gnomes <gnomes@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
Cc: Jann Horn <jann@thejh.net>
Cc: Jiri Slaby <jslaby@suse.com>
Cc: Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de>
Cc: Konstantin Khlebnikov <koct9i@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
2016-06-05 10:36:01 -07:00

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Each mount of the devpts filesystem is now distinct such that ptys
and their indicies allocated in one mount are independent from ptys
and their indicies in all other mounts.
All mounts of the devpts filesystem now create a /dev/pts/ptmx node
with permissions 0000.
To retain backwards compatibility the a ptmx device node (aka any node
created with "mknod name c 5 2") when opened will look for an instance
of devpts under the name "pts" in the same directory as the ptmx device
node.
As an option instead of placing a /dev/ptmx device node at /dev/ptmx
it is possible to place a symlink to /dev/pts/ptmx at /dev/ptmx or
to bind mount /dev/ptx/ptmx to /dev/ptmx. If you opt for using
the devpts filesystem in this manner devpts should be mounted with
the ptmxmode=0666, or chmod 0666 /dev/pts/ptmx should be called.
Total count of pty pairs in all instances is limited by sysctls:
kernel.pty.max = 4096 - global limit
kernel.pty.reserve = 1024 - reserved for filesystems mounted from the initial mount namespace
kernel.pty.nr - current count of ptys
Per-instance limit could be set by adding mount option "max=<count>".
This feature was added in kernel 3.4 together with sysctl kernel.pty.reserve.
In kernels older than 3.4 sysctl kernel.pty.max works as per-instance limit.