Bug 192220 – net-misc/dropbear - Please add USE flag for --disable-openpty

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED FIXED

[Description Max 2007-09-11 19:53:30 UTC]

DropBear is mostly used on embedded devices, and some of these (notable the DSM-G600) do not come with unix98 pty's in the default kernel. This option allows dropbear to compile and work with the standard kernel, it would therefore be nice to have it exposed as a USE flag (maybe BSDPTY).

Absence of the --disable-openpty leaves me without a shell when trying to log in.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Compile default DropBear
2. Run using the default kernel on embedded DSM-G600
3. Log in from other machine

Actual Results:  
SSH returns - no pty could be allocated

Expected Results:  
Login via SSH

http://dsmg600.info/howto:chroot_gentoo

[Comment 1 SpanKY 2007-09-11 20:18:55 UTC]

i dont think there's any advantage at all to disabling unix98 pty's in the kernel and going with old style pty's ... any one shipping kernels like that should be smacked and fix their configuration

i cant think of a useful USE flag to use here nor should it really be encouraged to do so in the first place

you can do:
EXTRA_ECONF=--disable-openpty emerge dropbear

[Comment 2 Max 2007-09-12 09:32:30 UTC]

I know the kernel is flawed - unfortunately this is something I cannot change without risking bricking my embedded device.

The reason for a use flag would be other apps, such as "screen", which have the same problem.

[Comment 3 SpanKY 2007-10-06 12:28:43 UTC]

ive added USE=bsdpty to dropbear-0.50