Issue #20682 has been updated by ono-max (Naoto Ono). Here is the summary that we know so far. ## Current PTY's behavior The slave PTY output is lost after a child process exits in macOS ## Workaround's behavior The program hangs if a user writes a code which does not read the output as follows: ```ruby require 'pty' _, _, pid = PTY.spawn('ruby', '-e', 'puts "a"; puts "b"') Process.waitpid(pid) ``` ---------------------------------------- Bug #20682: Slave PTY output is lost after a child process exits in macOS https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/issues/20682#change-109488 * Author: ono-max (Naoto Ono) * Status: Open * Backport: 3.1: UNKNOWN, 3.2: UNKNOWN, 3.3: UNKNOWN ---------------------------------------- According to Launchable, the following PTY tests are flaky only on macOS. https://app.launchableinc.com/organizations/ruby/workspaces/ruby/data/test-p... https://app.launchableinc.com/organizations/ruby/workspaces/ruby/data/test-p... https://app.launchableinc.com/organizations/ruby/workspaces/ruby/data/test-p... https://app.launchableinc.com/organizations/ruby/workspaces/ruby/data/test-p... It's because the slave PTY output is lost after a child process exits in macOS. Here is the code to reproduce the problem. When I remove `sleep 3` from the code, "a" is returned. ``` require 'pty' r, w, pid = PTY.spawn('ruby', '-e', 'puts "a"') sleep 3 puts r.gets #=> Returns nil ``` Based on my investigation, this issue happens in the macOS side and it's almost same as https://github.com/pexpect/pexpect/issues/662. The cause is described as follows in the ticket:
// NOTE[macOS-S_CTTYREF]: On macOS, after a forkpty(), if the pty slave (child) // is closed before the pty master (parent) reads, the pty's buffer is cleared // thus the master (parent) reads nothing. This can happen if the child exits // before the parent has a chance to call master.read(). // // This issue has been reported to Apple, but has not been resolved: // https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/663632 // // Work around this issue by opening /dev/tty then closing it. This ultimately // causes the child's exit() to flush the slave pty's output buffer in a // blocking way. This fixes the problem on macOS 13.2 in my testing. // // Here's how the workaround works in detail: // // If we open /dev/tty, it sets the S_CTTYREF flag on the process. This flag // remains set if we close the /dev/tty file descriptor. // https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/xnu/blob/aca3beaa3dfbd42498b42c5e... // Additionally, opening /dev/tty retains a reference to the pty slave. // https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/xnu/blob/aca3beaa3dfbd42498b42c5e... // // When the child process exits: // // 1. All open file descriptors (including stdin/stdout/stderr which are the pty // slave) are closed. This does *not* drain unread pty slave output. // * If S_CTTYREF was set, closing the file descriptors does not close the // last reference to the pty slave, so no cleanup happens yet. // * NOTE[macOS-pty-close-loss]: If S_CTTYREF was not set, closing the file // descriptors drops the last reference to the pty slave. Unread data is // dropped. // // 2. If the S_CTTYREF flag is set on the child process, the controlling // terminal (pty slave) is closed. XNU's ptsclose() ultimately calls // ttywait(). // https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/xnu/blob/aca3beaa3dfbd42498b42c5e... // * ttywait() is the same as ioctl(slave, TIOCDRAIN); it blocks waiting for // output to be received. // https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/xnu/blob/aca3beaa3dfbd42498b42c5e... // * NOTE[macOS-pty-waitpid-hang]: Because of the blocking ttywait(), the // process is in an exiting (but not zombie) state. waitpid() will hang. // // * NOTE[macOS-pty-close-loss]: If the S_CTTYREF flag is not set on the // child process, ttywait() is not called, thus the pty slave does not // block waiting for the output to be received, and the output is dropped. // A well-behaving parent will use a poll() loop anyway, so this isn't a // problem. (It does make quick tests annoying to write though.) // // Demonstration of NOTE[macOS-pty-close-loss] (S_CTTYREF is not set before // exit): // // // On macOS, this program should report 'data = ""', demonstrating that // // writes are lost. // // #include <stdlib.h> // #include <errno.h> // #include <stdio.h> // #include <string.h> // #include <unistd.h> // #include <util.h> // // int main() { // int tty_fd; // pid_t pid = forkpty(&tty_fd, /*name=*/NULL, /*termp=*/NULL, // /*winp=*/NULL); // if (pid == -1) { perror("forkpty"); abort(); } // // if (pid == 0) { // // Child. // (void)write(STDOUT_FILENO, "y", 1); // exit(0); // } else { // // Parent. // // // Cause the child to write() then exit(). exit() will drop written // // data. // sleep(1); // // char buffer[10]; // ssize_t rc = read(tty_fd, buffer, sizeof(buffer)); // if (rc < 0) { perror("read"); abort(); } // fprintf(stderr, "data = \"%.*s\"\n", (int)rc, buffer); // } // // return 0; // } // // Demonstration of NOTE[macOS-pty-waitpid-hang] (S_CTTYREF is set before exit): // // // On macOS, this program should hang, demonstrating that the child // // process doesn't finish exiting. // // // // During the hang, observe that the child is in an exiting state ("E"): // // // // $ ps -e -o pid,stat | grep 20125 // // 20125 ?Es // // #include <errno.h> // #include <fcntl.h> // #include <stdio.h> // #include <stdlib.h> // #include <string.h> // #include <unistd.h> // #include <util.h> // // int main() { // int tty_fd; // pid_t pid = forkpty(&tty_fd, /*name=*/NULL, /*termp=*/NULL, // /*winp=*/NULL); // if (pid == -1) { perror("forkpty"); abort(); } // // if (pid == 0) { // // Child. // close(open("/dev/tty", O_WRONLY)); // (void)write(STDOUT_FILENO, "y", 1); // exit(0); // } else { // // Parent. // // fprintf(stderr, "child PID: %d\n", pid); // // // This will hang because, despite the child being is an exiting // // state, the child is waiting for us to read(). // pid_t rc = waitpid(pid, NULL, 0); // if (rc < 0) { perror("waitpid"); abort(); } // } // // return 0; // }
In Ruby, PTY is implemented with [fork()](https://github.com/ruby/ruby/blob/master/process.c#L1706) and [posix_openpt()](https://github.com/ruby/ruby/blob/master/ext/pty/pty.c#L329) in macOS. I could reproduce the problem in the following script. ``` #include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> #include <unistd.h> #include <fcntl.h> #include <sys/ioctl.h> int main() { int master_fd, slave_fd; pid_t child_pid; char *slave_name; // Open a master pseudo-terminal master_fd = posix_openpt(O_RDWR | O_NOCTTY); if (master_fd == -1) { perror("posix_openpt"); exit(1); } // Grant access to the slave pseudo-terminal if (grantpt(master_fd) == -1) { perror("grantpt"); exit(1); } // Unlock the slave pseudo-terminal if (unlockpt(master_fd) == -1) { perror("unlockpt"); exit(1); } // Get the name of the slave pseudo-terminal slave_name = ptsname(master_fd); if (slave_name == NULL) { perror("ptsname"); exit(1); } // Fork a child process child_pid = fork(); if (child_pid == -1) { perror("fork"); exit(1); } else if (child_pid == 0) { // Child process // Open the slave pseudo-terminal slave_fd = open(slave_name, O_RDWR); if (slave_fd == -1) { perror("open"); exit(1); } // Create a new session and process group if (setsid() == -1) { perror("setsid"); exit(1); } // Set the controlling terminal for the child process if (ioctl(slave_fd, TIOCSCTTY, NULL) == -1) { perror("ioctl"); exit(1); } // Duplicate the slave file descriptor to stdin, stdout, and stderr if (dup2(slave_fd, STDIN_FILENO) == -1) { perror("dup2"); exit(1); } if (dup2(slave_fd, STDOUT_FILENO) == -1) { perror("dup2"); exit(1); } if (dup2(slave_fd, STDERR_FILENO) == -1) { perror("dup2"); exit(1); } // close(open("/dev/tty", O_WRONLY)); // Close the original slave file descriptor close(slave_fd); // Execute a shell or other program (void)write(STDOUT_FILENO, "y", 1); exit(1); } else { sleep(5); char buffer[10]; ssize_t rc = read(master_fd, buffer, sizeof(buffer)); if (rc < 0) { perror("read"); abort(); } fprintf(stderr, "data = \"%.*s\"\n", (int)rc, buffer); // Clean up close(master_fd); } return 0; } ``` -- https://bugs.ruby-lang.org/