This patch series introduces TTY keyboard status request, a feature of the n_tty line discipline that reserves a character in struct termios (^T by default) and reacts to it by printing a short informational line to the terminal and sending a Unix signal to the tty's foreground process group. The processes may, in response to the signal, output a textual description of what they're doing. The feature has been present in a similar form at least in Free/Open/NetBSD; it would be nice to have something like this in Linux as well. There is an LKML thread[1] where users have previously expressed the rationale for this. The current implementation does not break existing kernel API in any way, since, fortunately, all the architectures supported by the kernel happen to have at least 1 free byte in the termios control character array. The series should cleanly apply to tty-next. To thoroughly test these, one might need at least a patched stty among other tools, so I've brought up a simple initrd generator[2] which can be used to create a lightweight environment to boot up in a VM and to fiddle with. [1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/1415200663.3247743.187387481.75CE9317@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/ [2] https://github.com/porrided/tty-kb-status-userspace v2 <- v1: removed useless debugging bits. Discussion of v1: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20190605081906.28938-1-ar@xxxxxxxxx/ Arseny Maslennikov (7): signal.h: Define SIGINFO on all architectures tty: termios: Reserve space for VSTATUS in .c_cc n_tty: Send SIGINFO to fg pgrp on status request character linux/signal.h: Ignore SIGINFO by default in new tasks tty: Add NOKERNINFO lflag to termios n_tty: ->ops->write: Cut core logic out to a separate function n_tty: Provide an informational line on VSTATUS receipt arch/alpha/include/asm/termios.h | 4 +- arch/alpha/include/uapi/asm/termbits.h | 2 + arch/arm/include/uapi/asm/signal.h | 1 + arch/h8300/include/uapi/asm/signal.h | 1 + arch/ia64/include/asm/termios.h | 4 +- arch/ia64/include/uapi/asm/signal.h | 1 + arch/ia64/include/uapi/asm/termbits.h | 2 + arch/m68k/include/uapi/asm/signal.h | 1 + arch/mips/include/asm/termios.h | 4 +- arch/mips/include/uapi/asm/signal.h | 1 + arch/mips/include/uapi/asm/termbits.h | 2 + arch/parisc/include/asm/termios.h | 4 +- arch/parisc/include/uapi/asm/signal.h | 1 + arch/parisc/include/uapi/asm/termbits.h | 2 + arch/powerpc/include/asm/termios.h | 4 +- arch/powerpc/include/uapi/asm/signal.h | 1 + arch/powerpc/include/uapi/asm/termbits.h | 2 + arch/s390/include/asm/termios.h | 4 +- arch/s390/include/uapi/asm/signal.h | 1 + arch/sparc/include/asm/termios.h | 4 +- arch/sparc/include/uapi/asm/signal.h | 2 + arch/sparc/include/uapi/asm/termbits.h | 2 + arch/x86/include/uapi/asm/signal.h | 1 + arch/xtensa/include/uapi/asm/signal.h | 1 + arch/xtensa/include/uapi/asm/termbits.h | 2 + drivers/tty/Makefile | 3 +- drivers/tty/n_tty.c | 70 ++++- drivers/tty/n_tty_status.c | 337 +++++++++++++++++++++++ include/asm-generic/termios.h | 4 +- include/linux/sched.h | 7 + include/linux/signal.h | 5 +- include/linux/tty.h | 7 +- include/uapi/asm-generic/signal.h | 1 + include/uapi/asm-generic/termbits.h | 2 + 34 files changed, 457 insertions(+), 33 deletions(-) create mode 100644 drivers/tty/n_tty_status.c -- 2.20.1
