tty_open_by_driver(9)

🎀 tty_open_by_driver(9) 🎀

okay bestie, so this is a page from the Kernel API Manual — yes, the Kernel API Manual, we're literally reading kernel docs together, this is our life now 💅

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✨ NAME ✨

tty_open_by_driver — open a tty device 🖥️✨

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

struct tty_struct * tty_open_by_driver (dev_t device , struct file *filp );

like, look at her. she returns a struct tty_struct * and she takes two things. iconic signature ngl 🫶

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🦋 ARGUMENTS 🦋

• device — the dev_t of the device you wanna open 💖
• filp — the file pointer to the tty 🎀

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💜 DESCRIPTION 💜

so what she actually does: she performs the driver lookup, checks whether this is a reopen, or otherwise does the first-time tty initialization. all three roads, one function, main character energy fr fr 👑

and here's the tea — she claims the global tty_mutex to serialize these three things:

• concurrent first-time tty initialization ⭐
• concurrent tty driver removal w/ lookup 🔥
• concurrent tty removal from driver table 🌈

like no cap, that mutex is doing so much work. she's the group chat admin of concurrency here 💀

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💀 RETURN 💀

the locked, initialized-or-re-opened tty_struct — that's the whole vibe, she hands you the struct and it's locked 💅✨

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👑 SEE ALSO 👑

kernel file ./drivers/tty/tty_io.c — and here comes the whole friend group, brace yourself bestie 😭:

free_tty_struct(9), tty_free_file(9), tty_name(9), get_tty_driver(9), tty_dev_name_to_number(9), tty_find_polling_driver(9), tty_wakeup(9), tty_release_redirect(9), __tty_hangup(9), tty_hangup(9), tty_vhangup(9), tty_vhangup_self(9), tty_vhangup_session(9), tty_hung_up_p(9), stop_tty(9), start_tty(9), tty_read(9), tty_write(9), tty_send_xchar(9), pty_line_name(9), tty_line_name(9), tty_driver_lookup_tty(9), tty_init_termios(9), tty_standard_install(9), tty_driver_install_tty(9), tty_driver_remove_tty(9), tty_reopen(9), tty_init_dev(9), tty_save_termios(9), tty_flush_works(9), release_one_tty(9), tty_kref_put(9), release_tty(9), tty_release_checks(9), tty_kclose(9), tty_release_struct(9), tty_release(9), tty_open_current_tty(9), tty_lookup_driver(9), tty_kopen_exclusive(9), tty_kopen_shared(9), tty_open(9), tty_poll(9), tiocsti(9), tiocgwinsz(9), tty_do_resize(9), tiocswinsz(9), tioccons(9), tiocsetd(9), tiocgetd(9), send_break(9), tty_get_tiocm(9), tty_tiocmget(9), tty_tiocmset(9), tty_get_icount(9), alloc_tty_struct(9), tty_put_char(9), tty_register_device(9), tty_register_device_attr(9), tty_unregister_device(9), __tty_alloc_driver(9), tty_driver_kref_put(9), tty_register_driver(9), tty_unregister_driver(9)

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okay that's literally the whole roster, iykyk 😮‍💨🫶

and that's the page!! sign-off time bestie: this lil beauty lives under ./drivers/tty and it's dated October 2026 — screenshot it, frame it, whatever, we ate 🍓💖🧚✨