[Bug 1006676] Re: showkey fails with "Couldn't get a file descriptor referring to the console"

[redtux]

Hi there,

I also just had the same problem on an Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS box (with both
zsh and bash, on tty and on pseudo terminal running X). Is it already
known where this error message comes from, so we could change the string
to something more convenient recommending the user to become root or to
run sudo?

Of course, as explained by ESR it would be nice if it was not even
necessary to run the command as root, but (at least on my system) normal
users have no permission to access the respective file descriptors.

ls -l /dev/console
crw------- 1 root root 5, 1 Aug 22 11:13 /dev/console

ls -l /dev/tty0
crw--w---- 1 root tty 4, 0 Aug 22 11:13 /dev/tty0

strace tells me that showkey (run as user) does not have enough privileges:
open("/dev/tty0", O_RDWR)               = -1 EACCES (Permission denied)
open("/dev/tty0", O_WRONLY)             = -1 EACCES (Permission denied)
open("/dev/tty0", O_RDONLY)             = -1 EACCES (Permission denied)
open("/dev/console", O_RDWR)            = -1 EACCES (Permission denied)
open("/dev/console", O_WRONLY)          = -1 EACCES (Permission denied)
open("/dev/console", O_RDONLY)          = -1 EACCES (Permission denied)

BTW: I am running the most recent kbd/showkey version that is available
for Xenial. Maybe this bug has already been fixed upstream in version
2.0?

apt-cache policy kbd
kbd:
  Installed: 1.15.5-1ubuntu5
  Candidate: 1.15.5-1ubuntu5
  Version table:
 *** 1.15.5-1ubuntu5 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     1.15.5-1ubuntu4 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 Packages

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1006676

Title:
  showkey fails with "Couldn't get a file descriptor referring to the
  console"

Status in kbd package in Ubuntu:
  Invalid

Bug description:
  When invoked in Gnome Terminal 3.0.1 (Ubuntu 11.10), showkey
  uninformatively exits after reporting:

    "Couldn't get a file descriptor referring to the console"

  For one who doesn't know what this means (such as myself), showkey is
  thus rendered unusable. The man page has no information about this
  behaviour.

  Installed kbd package: 1.15.2-3ubuntu1

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