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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-15T03:20:17+00:00

I have an application that needs to behave differently if run directly from the

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I have an application that needs to behave differently if run directly from the linux console. So if a user connects with SSH to run FooBar, or the user walks over to the console and logs in directly to run FooBar, I want it to do something different.

What C API do I need to call to tell the difference between these two scenarios? I was thinking I’d have to look at the “tty/pts” information (such as what I see when I run “ps axf”), but I’m not certain if that is the best solution, nor what API to call to get that information.

Hints appreciated. 🙂

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Checking the return value of ttyname(3) against your stdin should give you the name of the terminal which is feeding the input of your process.

    It will be /dev/console if the program is being run on the console (and doesn’t have it’s input redirected). You can also check stdout to see if it is connected to /dev/console – see which fits your usage scenario better.

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