From nik@blueberry.co.uk  Mon Apr 29 03:19:28 1996
Received: from plum.blueberry.co.uk ([194.70.52.50])
          by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with ESMTP id DAA07634
          for <FreeBSD-gnats-submit@freebsd.org>; Mon, 29 Apr 1996 03:19:23 -0700 (PDT)
Received: (from nik@localhost) by plum.blueberry.co.uk (8.7.5/8.6.12) id LAA03174; Mon, 29 Apr 1996 11:16:35 +0100 (BST)
Message-Id: <199604291016.LAA03174@plum.blueberry.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 11:16:35 +0100 (BST)
From: Nik Clayton <nik@blueberry.co.uk>
Reply-To: nik@blueberry.co.uk
To: FreeBSD-gnats-submit@freebsd.org
Subject: As shipped, ownership of /dev/console is set incorrectly
X-Send-Pr-Version: 3.2

>Number:         1162
>Category:       conf
>Synopsis:       As shipped, ownership of /dev/console is set incorrectly
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       low
>Responsible:    freebsd-bugs
>State:          closed
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:  
>Class:          doc-bug
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Mon Apr 29 03:20:00 PDT 1996
>Closed-Date:    Mon Apr 29 10:19:23 PDT 1996
>Last-Modified:  Tue Nov 27 18:52:58 PST 2001
>Originator:     Nik Clayton
>Release:        FreeBSD 2.1-STABLE i386
>Organization:
Blueberry Design                  
>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.
>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
State-Changed-From-To: open->closed 
State-Changed-By: jkh 
State-Changed-When: Mon Apr 29 10:19:23 PDT 1996 
State-Changed-Why:  
Issues like this are why /etc/fbtab was invented.  Specifically, 
an entry of the form: 
/dev/ttyv0 0600 /dev/console 
In /etc/fbtab will fix this problem (see man page for fbtab). 
>Unformatted:
