Cannot open pseudo tty

[Javasnob]

When I try to start aterm, xterm, or screen as a regular user, it complains that it can't open a pseudo tty and exits. I've figured out that the problem involves permissions, as I can do it as root, but before I chmod /dev/pts, I'd like to see if you guys know of a better solution. Thanks!

[lakerdonald]

Whenever I reinstall Gentoo I always have that problem and I never remember how I fixed it. What are the permissions on the /dev/pts/ directory (i.e. ls -ld /dev/pts)

[Javasnob]

The permissions are:

drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 0 Apr 20 02:13 /dev/pts

[Krendoshazin]

When I get this error, I either haven't mounted devpts,
fstab line: devpts /dev/pts devpts gid=4,mode=620 0 0

or the permissions aren't correct, /dev/pts needs to be 755, which you have and is fine, since you can do it as root devpts must be mounted, so that leaves /dev/ptmx, as root try the command 'chmod 666 /dev/ptmx' (without the quotes), if it doesn't exist use the command, as root, 'mknod /dev/ptmx c 5 2', then chmod it, hopefully that should sort it out.

[johnrw]

Ok... since Google ranked this discussion pretty high on the results for this error: "Cannot open pseudo-tty" when I tried that to resolve my problem, I'll post what I did to fix my tty problem here.

I had installed Unixtree as root, and I got a wierd error with a frozen pcxterm window when I ran it as non root user john. I had setup an icon to run it with on the desktop. So I ran it from a Konsole terminal and it gave me the same could not open pseudo-tty message you have discussed here. It turns out to be a simple fix for me.

Cause:
If you check which groups you are a member of using `id' you will probably not see tty in the list.

Fix:
When logged in as root:

I added john to the tty group, or tty to john's group membership list...
first by checking what john was a member of... using the `id' command.

id john

Here is what mine showed:
uid=1002(john) gid=100(users) groups=100(users),4(adm),11(floppy),17(audio),18(v ideo),19(cdrom)

Then using the usermod command with a complete list (with no spaces, and comma separated ) so it would not subtract one that was missing(just in case) like this:

usermod -G users,adm,cdrom,floppy,audio,video,tty john

This fixed Unixtree's pcxterm after I logged out completely, and logged in again. I probably should have a better list of groups for john to be a member of... wheel maybe should be there too. I have alot more to learn but this gave my program the ability to run.

Hope this helps.