CONSOLE(4)                                          Linux Programmer's Manual                                         CONSOLE(4)



NAME
       console - console terminal and virtual consoles

DESCRIPTION
       A  Linux  system  has up to 63 virtual consoles (character devices with major number 4 and minor number 1 to 63), usually
       called /dev/ttyn with 1 <= n <= 63.  The current console is also addressed by /dev/console or  /dev/tty0,  the  character
       device  with major number 4 and minor number 0.  The device files /dev/* are usually created using the script MAKEDEV, or
       using mknod(1), usually with mode 0622 and owner root.tty.

       Before kernel version 1.1.54 the number of virtual consoles was compiled into the kernel (in tty.h:  #define  NR_CONSOLES
       8)  and  could  be  changed by editing and recompiling.  Since version 1.1.54 virtual consoles are created on the fly, as
       soon as they are needed.

       Common ways to start a process on a console are: (a) tell init(8) (in inittab(5)) to start a mingetty(8)  (or  agetty(8))
       on  the  console;  (b) ask openvt(1) to start a process on the console; (c) start X -- it will find the first unused con-
       sole, and display its output there.  (There is also the ancient doshell(8).)

       Common ways to switch consoles are: (a) use Alt+Fn or Ctrl+Alt+Fn to switch to console n; AltGr+Fn  might  bring  you  to
       console n+12 [here Alt and AltGr refer to the left and right Alt keys, respectively]; (b) use Alt+RightArrow or Alt+Left-
       Arrow to cycle through the presently allocated consoles; (c) use the program chvt(1).  (The key mapping is user settable,
       see loadkeys(1); the above mentioned key combinations are according to the default settings.)

       The command deallocvt(1) (formerly disalloc) will free the memory taken by the screen buffers for consoles that no longer
       have any associated process.

   Properties
       Consoles carry a lot of state.  I hope to document that some other time.  The most important fact is  that  the  consoles
       simulate  vt100  terminals.  In particular, a console is reset to the initial state by printing the two characters ESC c.
       All escape sequences can be found in console_codes(4).

FILES
       /dev/console
       /dev/tty*

SEE ALSO
       chvt(1),  deallocvt(1),  loadkeys(1),  mknod(1),  openvt(1),   console_codes(4),   console_ioctl(4),   tty(4),   ttyS(4),
       charsets(7), agetty(8), init(8), mapscrn(8), mingetty(8), resizecons(8), setfont(8)

COLOPHON
       This  page  is  part of release 3.25 of the Linux man-pages project.  A description of the project, and information about
       reporting bugs, can be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.



Linux                                                      1994-10-31                                                 CONSOLE(4)