MAKEDEV ptm devices and /dev/pts

[Brook Milligan <brook%nmsu.edu@localhost>]

I notice what appears to be an incompatibility under some circumstances between fstab and MAKEDEV.

- /etc/fstab has an entry for the mount point /dev/pts

- /dev/pts is not created as part of system installation (unlike /dev/altq and /dev/fd, which are empty directories)

- /dev/pts is instead created by MAKEDEV when ptm devices are created, which is part of all) but not init)

This means that /dev created by init on a memory filesystem will not contain /dev/pty (or the ptm* devices).

There are at least several solutions to this:

- create an empty /dev/pts directory during installation as is done for /dev/altq and /dev/fd.

- teach init) to also create the ptm devices

- remove the ptyfs entry from /etc/fstab

- ... ?

The first option seems simplest, but if the ptm* devices should always be available and ptyfs is supposed to work in all cases, then the second option is required.

What is the best way forward?

Cheers,
Brook