# New reptyr feature: TTY-stealing

DevFeed: [New reptyr feature: TTY-stealing](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/new-reptyr-feature-tty-stealing-21934.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://blog.nelhage.com/2014/08/new-reptyr-feature-tty-stealing/>)

Author: Nelson Elhage

Published: 2014-08-20T08:41:34Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Nelson Elhage](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/nelson-elhage.md>)

Topics: [Processes](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/processes.md>), [Process](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/process.md>), [Terminal](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/terminal.md>), [Unix](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/unix.md>), [Git](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/git.md>)

Tags: [experimental](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/experimental.md>), [feature](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/feature.md>), [git](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/git.md>), [process](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/process.md>), [processes](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/processes.md>), [terminal](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/terminal.md>), [unix](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/unix.md>)

## AI overview

The article introduces an experimental "tty-stealing" feature for reptyr that can attach an entire terminal session, including processes with children, instead of only a single process. It explains the feature's operation through the master end of a pseudo-terminal and notes a known limitation involving sessions started directly from an unspecified terminal context unless reptyr runs as root.

## Source excerpt

Ever since I wrote reptyr, I've been frustrated by a number of issues in reptyr that I fundamentally didn't know how to solve within the reptyr model. Most annoyingly, reptyr fundamentally only worked on single processes, and could not attach processes with children, making it useless in a large class of real-world situations. TTY stealing Recently, I merged an experimental reptyr feature that I call "tty-stealing", which has the potential to fix all of these issues (with some other disadvantages, which I'll discuss later).