Re: tty loop-back device

[Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwards@gmail.com>]

On 2013-09-28, Matwey V. Kornilov <matwey.kornilov@gmail.com> wrote:

> Not sure whether here is the right place to ask. Do the kernel already 
> has (or, would it be great to have) the tty loop-back support? At least 
> I've not found something appropriate. I mean, imagine kind of /dev/tty 
> device, supporting read/write and termios interface and transferring 
> your read/write/ioctl calls to another user-space application listening, 
> for instance, /dev/tty_loopback_master. Like a named pipe device.

What you're talking about is pretty much the existing pty device.

Unfortunately, Linux pty's only support a subset of the serial port
API, so they can't be used for applications like network-connected
serial ports.  So people like me have to write kernel-mode drivers for
such devices.

I've suggested extending the Linux pty so that it _does_ support the
rest of the serial port API.  I even offered to work on it if the
results would likely be accepted into the kernel tree, but my
questions/offers have never gotten any response.

-- 
Grant