Bug 109589

Summary: mesg fails with device not owned by group `tty' error
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Michael Fischer <fischer-michael>
Component: kernelAssignee: Than Ngo <than>
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX QA Contact: Ben Levenson <benl>
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 1CC: bugzilla, lapham
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Target Release: ---   
Hardware: i686   
OS: Linux   
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Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
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Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2004-09-29 19:38:55 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
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oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description Michael Fischer 2003-11-09 21:46:20 UTC
From Bugzilla Helper:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031007

Description of problem:
When I type "mesg y" into a tcsh shell running inside a kde terminal
window, I get the response:
mesg: error: tty device is not owned by group `tty'
Looking in /dev/pts/, all of the files there belong to my default
group, not by "tty".
However, if I log in remotely using ssh, then the corresponding file
(e.g., /dev/pts/22) does belong to group "tty", and mesg y works.

Problem might be in /usr/bin/konsole in component kdebase-3.1.4-6.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
SysVinit-2.85-5

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Open KDE terminal window.
2.Type "mesg y"

    

Actual Results:  mesg: error: tty device is not owned by group `tty'

Expected Results:  Null response; mesg access enabled.

Additional info:

Comment 1 Bennett Feitell 2003-11-10 21:56:38 UTC
I wonder if this is related to the cannot chownpty error messages
produced by konsole when it is started by a non-root user?

--error text follows
konsole: cannot chown /dev/pts/3.
Reason: Operation not permitted
konsole_grantpty not installed root-suid
konsole: chownpty failed for device /dev/pts/3::/dev/pts/3.
       : This means the session can be eavesdroped.
       : Make sure konsole_grantpty is installed in
       : /usr/bin/ and setuid root.


Comment 2 Michael Fischer 2003-11-10 22:24:06 UTC
/usr/bin/konsole_grantpty was installed with suid bit turned off.  I
turned it on and restarted kde, but the problem continues.  However,
if I run konsole as root, then the corresponding /dev/pts/ device does
end up with gid=tty as it should.

Comment 3 JLapham 2003-11-19 11:08:03 UTC
<aol>I'm seeing this problem too</aol>

Every time I log into my machine I see the "mesg: error: tty device is
not owned by group `tty'" because I have "mesg y" in my .bashrc.  Ugh.

Comment 4 JLapham 2003-11-19 11:11:46 UTC
Oh, I should add that this probably has nothing to do with Component:
kdebase, as I do not have KDE installed and I see the same message. 
Michael, I'm guessing it would be better to change the component to
MAKEDEV or bash.

Comment 5 Michael Fischer 2003-11-19 20:01:07 UTC
This may be a kernel bug.  I've written C test programs to create a
pty using either getpt(), open("/dev/ptmx",...), or openpty().  In all
cases, the newly created device /dev/pts/nn has uid and gid of the
calling process, not the gid specified when /dev/pts was mounted. 
Mount shows
   none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
so the /etc/fstab entry is being processed, but the setgid 5 for the
new slave device is not happening.  My test programs work correctly
when compiled and run on a RH9 system.
I'm changing component to "kernel".

Comment 6 David Lawrence 2004-09-29 19:38:55 UTC
Thanks for the bug report. However, Red Hat no longer maintains this version of
the product. Please upgrade to the latest version and open a new bug if the problem
persists.

The Fedora Legacy project (http://fedoralegacy.org/) maintains some older releases, 
and if you believe this bug is interesting to them, please report the problem in
the bug tracker at: http://bugzilla.fedora.us/