Bug#806882: libc-bin: unable to set pts permissions (and open a terminal...)

[Domenico Andreoli <domenico.andreoli.it@gmail.com>]

Package: libc-bin

Version: 2.21-1

Hi,

  I'm unable to open some terminal applications like rxvt and konsole, don't know why but xterm still works.

Running rxvt gives this output:

$ rxvt
rxvt: can't open pseudo-tty
rxvt: aborting

$ strace rxvt
statfs("/dev/pts", {f_type="DEVPTS_SUPER_MAGIC", f_bsize=4096, f_blocks=0, f_bfree=0, f_bavail=0, f_files=0, f_ffree=0, f_fsid={0, 0}, f_namelen=255, f_frsize=4096}) = 0
ioctl(4, TCGETS, {B38400 opost isig icanon echo ...}) = 0
ioctl(4, TIOCGPTN, [2])                 = 0
stat("/dev/pts/2", {st_mode=S_IFCHR|0600, st_rdev=makedev(136, 2), ...}) = 0
getuid()                                = 1000
open("/etc/group", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC)  = 5
lseek(5, 0, SEEK_CUR)                   = 0
fstat(5, {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=624, ...}) = 0
mmap(NULL, 624, PROT_READ, MAP_SHARED, 5, 0) = 0x7f02d0366000
lseek(5, 624, SEEK_SET)                 = 624
munmap(0x7f02d0366000, 624)             = 0
close(5)                                = 0
chown("/dev/pts/2", 1000, 5)            = -1 EPERM (Operation not permitted)
close(4)                                = 0
open("/dev/pty??", O_RDWR|O_NOCTTY)     = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
write(2, "rxvt: ", 6rxvt: )                   = 6
write(2, "can't open pseudo-tty", 21can't open pseudo-tty)   = 21
write(2, "\n", 1
)

$ ls -l /dev/pts/*
crw------- 1 cavok cavok 136, 0 Dec  2  2015 /dev/pts/0
crw------- 1 cavok cavok 136, 1 Dec  2 12:38 /dev/pts/1

Investigating konsole, the issue looks the same: unable to set pts permission.

Downgrading libc6 and libc6-i686 to 2.19-22 doesn't help, but downgrading libc-bin actually does the trick.

Could you please help here?

Kind regards,

Domenico