CONS(3) CONS(3)
NAME
cons - console, clocks, process/process group ids, user,
null, klog, stats, lights, noise, sysstat, hz, swap, key,
hostowner, hostdomain, authenticate, authcheck,
authenticator
SYNOPSIS
bind #c /dev
/dev/authcheck
/dev/authenticate
/dev/authenticator
/dev/clock
/dev/cons
/dev/consctl
/dev/cputime
/dev/hostdomain
/dev/hostowner
/dev/hz
/dev/key
/dev/klog
/dev/lights
/dev/msec
/dev/noise
/dev/null
/dev/pgrpid
/dev/pid
/dev/ppid
/dev/swap
/dev/sysname
/dev/sysstat
/dev/time
/dev/user
DESCRIPTION
The console device serves a one-level directory giving
access to the console and miscellaneous information.
Reading the cons file returns characters typed on the key-
board. Normally, characters are buffered to enable erase
and kill processing. A control-U, `^U', typed at the key-
board kills the current input line (removes all characters
from the buffer of characters not yet read via cons), and a
backspace erases the previous non-kill, non-erase character
from the input buffer. Killing and erasing only delete
characters back to, but not including, the last newline.
Characters typed at the keyboard actually produce 16-bit
runes (see utf(6)), but the runes are translated into the
variable-length UTF encoding (see utf(6)) before putting
them into the buffer. A read(2) of length greater than zero
Page 1 Plan 9 (printed 4/25/24)
CONS(3) CONS(3)
causes the process to wait until a newline or a `^D' ends
the buffer, and then returns as much of the buffer as the
argument to read allows, but only up to one complete line.
A terminating `^D' is not put into the buffer. If part of
the line remains, the next read will return bytes from that
remainder and not part of any new line that has been typed
since.
If the string rawon has been written to the consctl file and
the file is still open, cons is in raw mode: characters are
not echoed as they are typed, backspace and `^D' are not
treated specially, and characters are available to read as
soon as they are typed. Ordinary mode is reentered when
rawoff is written to consctl or this file is closed.
A write (see read(2)) to cons causes the characters to be
printed on the console screen.
The null file throws away anything written to it and always
returns zero bytes when read.
The klog file contains the tail of messages written by ker-
nel logging statements.
Writing a number (as plain text) to the lights device
directs any lights that are available to turn on and off.
The bits of the number are mapped to the lights in a
processor-dependent way.
Writing two blank- or tab-separated numbers to the noise
device causes the machine to make a tone, if possible. The
first number is the frequency, in Hertz, and the second is
the duration, in milliseconds.
The hostdomain file contains the name of the authentication
domain that this host belongs to; see auth(6). Only the user
named in /dev/hostowner may write this.
The hostowner file contains the name of the user that owns
the console device files. The hostowner also has group per-
missions for any local devices.
The key file is used to set the DES key used for encryption.
Each machine has one key. Only the user named in
/dev/hostowner may write this.
The authenticate file is used to authenticate new users to
the kernel; see auth(6). After an open, the first read
returns a ticket request message of the following form:
char num;
char authid[28];
char authdom[48];
Page 2 Plan 9 (printed 4/25/24)
CONS(3) CONS(3)
char chal[8];
char hostid[28];
char uid[28];
Here num is 1, authid and hostid are the contents of
hostowner, and authdom is the contents of hostdomain. Chal
is an 8 byte random challenge created by the kernel. A sub-
sequent write of a valid ticket encrypted with the key con-
tained in key changes the user name of the writing process
to the value of suid in the ticket. The ticket is of the
form:
char num;
char chal[8];
char cuid[28];
char suid[28];
char noncekey[7];
The ticket is valid if num is 64 and chal matches the chal-
lenge in the ticket request. Writing an invalid ticket gen-
erates an error. A read following a successful write yields
an authenticator message of the form:
char num;
char chal[8];
char id[4];
The authenticator is encrypted in noncekey from the ticket.
Num is 66, id[0-4] are 0, and chal matches the challenge in
the original ticket request.
The authenticator file is used to generate an authenticator
from a ticket. One writes a ticket encrypted with the key
contained in key, followed, optionally, by a 4-byte id; a
missing id defaults to zero. If the client uid matches the
current user, a subsequent read yields an authenticator for
that ticket with the given id.
The authcheck file is used to match authenticators to tick-
ets. A write of an authenticator appended to the end of a
ticket succeeds if the ticket is encrypted with the key con-
tained in key, the ticket's num is 65, the authenticator is
encrypted with the ticket's noncekey, the authenticator's
and ticket's chal's match, the authenticator's num is 66,
and the authenticator's id is 0. Alternatively, the write
may consist of ticket, authenticator, chal, and id, in which
case the given chal and id must match those of the authenti-
cator.
The user file contains the name of the user associated with
the current process. Any process can change to user none by
writing none to this file.
The rest of the files contain (mostly) read-only strings.
Each string has a fixed length: a read(2) of more than that
gives a result of that fixed length (the result does not
include a terminating zero byte); a read of less than that
Page 3 Plan 9 (printed 4/25/24)
CONS(3) CONS(3)
length leaves the file offset so the rest of the string (but
no more) will be read the next time. To reread the file
without closing it, seek must be used to reset the offset.
When the file contains numeric data, each number is format-
ted in decimal as an 11-digit number with leading blanks and
one trailing blank: twelve bytes total.
The cputime file holds 6 numbers, containing the time in
milliseconds that the current process has spent in user
mode, system calls, real elapsed time, and then the time
spent, by exited children and their descendants, in user
mode, system calls, and real elapsed time.
The clock file holds two numbers: the number of clock ticks
since booting followed by the number of clock ticks in a
second.
The sysname file holds the textual name of the machine, e.g.
kremvax, if known.
The sysstat file holds 8 numbers: processor number, context
switches, interrupts, system calls, page faults, tlb faults,
tlb purges, and load average. The load average is in units
of milli-CPUs and is decayed over time; the others are total
counts from boot time. If the machine is a multiprocessor,
sysstat holds one line per processor. Writing anything to
sysstat resets all of the counts on all processors.
The swap device holds a string of the form
m1/m2 memory s1/s2 swap
These give, for each of internal memory and the swapping
area, the number of pages used and the total available.
These numbers are not blank padded. To turn on swapping,
write to swap the textual file descriptor number of a file
or device on which to swap. See swap(8).
The other files served by the cons device are all single
numbers:
hz frequency of the system clock
msec number of milliseconds since booting
pgrpid process group number
pid process number
ppid parent's process number
time number of seconds since the epoch 00:00:00 GMT,
Page 4 Plan 9 (printed 4/25/24)
CONS(3) CONS(3)
Jan. 1, 1970. (Can be written once, to set at
boot time.)
SEE ALSO
bit(3), keyboard(6), auth(6), utf(6), swap(8)
SOURCE
/sys/src/9/port/devcons.c
BUGS
For debugging, two control-T's followed by a letter generate
console output: `^T^Tp' prints data about processes, `^T^Tq'
prints data about streams, `^T^Tm' prints data about the
mount device, `^T^Tb' prints data about the bitblt device,
and `^T^Tx' prints data about kernel memory allocation.
The system can be rebooted by typing `^T^Tr'.
Page 5 Plan 9 (printed 4/25/24)