On Friday, June 25, 1999 12:53 AM, Alfred Perlstein 
[SMTP:bright@rush.net] wrote:
> On Thu, 24 Jun 1999 mcmahill@mtl.mit.edu wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > I just hooked up a modem to my sparc IPX and am trying to get it
> > going.  I
> > don't have anything running yet that should be using the modem.
> >  Wanted to
> > start with cu to verify hardware and basic communications to
> > modem.  This
> > is what happens:
> >
> > cowboy-burt# cu --parity=none --line /dev/ttya --speed 9600 --
> > debug all
> > cu: open (/dev/ttya): Permission denied
> > cu: /dev/ttya: Line in use
> >
> > cowboy-burt# ls -l /dev/ttya
> > crw-------  1 root  wheel  12, 0 Jun 24 16:20 /dev/ttya
> >
> > cowboy-burt# cat /etc/ttys | grep ttya
> > ttya    "/usr/libexec/getty std.9600"   unknown off secure
> >
> >
> > Any ideas?
> >
> > I used to just do
> >
> > cu -s 9600 -l /dev/tty00 on my Mac with NetBSD-1.3.
> >
> > Thanks
>
>
> cu is setgid dialer and setuid uucp, basically by running it
> you loose the ability to open the port :)
>
> For some reason I just can't for the life of me remeber how
> to solve this problem....
>
> Also, about it "being in use", I suggest you grab the 'lsof'
> source and use that to find whomever is stealing you
> serial port from you.
>
> -Alfred Perlstein - [bright@rush.net|bright@wintelcom.net]
> systems administrator and programmer
>     Win Telecom - http://www.wintelcom.net/

If this is a personal machine (no one else using it), I would make 
ttya rw for everyone (chmod 666 /dev/ttya).

So far as the Line in use message, that may be caused by cu 
interpretting the unavailability of /dev/ttya as being caused by 
someone already having it open.