xconsole failure in 8.0

[bigearsbilly]

I can't get xconsole working,
"Couldn't open console"

the permissions seem OK:

crw------- 1 billy wheel 0, 6 Jan 3 22:30 /dev/console

using xdm, release 8.0.
It used to work fine on 7.1 but I seem to remember
a /dev/xconsole??

any ideas?
xterm -C the same:


$ xterm -C
xterm: cannot open console: Operation not permitted


even if I chmod 666 /dev/console
(yes I know the chmod is only till reboot)

???

[bigearsbilly]

blimey doesn't anyone else keep tabs of console messages?

anyway, it seems to be issues with ioctl TIOCCONS

I just setuid my xconsole binary.
crap solution but there you go.

[LateNiteTV]

couldnt you just use sudo so you dont have suid bit?

[bigearsbilly]

I suppose I could, but it's more hassle.
It's only my home machine so I ain't worried.


anyway when I did an su and run xconsole it still didn't work.

[bunkerbsd]

This problem still exists in FreeBSD 9.0. As noted, the problem is that the TIOCCONS ioctl doesn't do what xconsole expects it to.

Rather than setuid the program, I modified the source to USE_FILE instead of USE_PTY (as under "#ifdef ultrix" but with "/dev/console") and uncommented the /dev/console line in /etc/fbtab.

As an aside, building xconsole gives a warning about the definition of openpty; this happens because configure tells it to look for util.h but FreeBSD wants libutil.h instead.

[fonz]

Thanks for the info and suggestions (complaining is one thing, proposing a fix is another). Feel free to contact the port maintainer!

Fonz

[bigearsbilly]

I was just wondering if the OP submitted a patch?

I would be willing to investigate and have a look at submitting myself if not.