VCS   (4) manpage
VCS
4
1995-02-19
Linux
Linux Programmer's Manual
  • NAME
      vcs, vcsa - virtual console memory
  • DESCRIPTION
      /dev/vcs0 is a character device with major number 7 and minor number 0, usually of mode 0644 and owner root.tty.  It refers to the memory of the currently displayed virtual console terminal. /dev/vcs[1-63] are character devices for virtual console terminals, they have major number 7 and minor number 1 to 63, usually mode 0644 and owner root.tty.  /dev/vcsa[0-63] are the same, but including attributes, and prefixed with four bytes giving the screen dimensions and cursor position: lines, columns, x, y. (x = y = 0 at the top left corner of the screen.)

      These replace the screendump ioctl s of console(4) , so the system administrator can control access using file system permissions.

      The devices for the first eight virtual consoles may be created by:
      
      	for x in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8; do 
      		mknod -m 644 /dev/vcs$x c 7 $x;
      		mknod -m 644 /dev/vcsa$x c 7 $[$x+128];
      	done
      	chown root:tty /dev/vcs*
      

      No ioctl () requests are supported.  
  • EXAMPLES
      You may do a screendump on vt3 by switching to vt1 and typing cat /dev/vcs3 >foo. Note that the output does not contain newline characters, so some processing may be required, like in fold -w 81 /dev/vcs3 | lpr or (horrors) setterm -dump 3 -file /proc/self/fd/1. The /dev/vcsa0 device is used for Braille support.
      This program displays the character and screen attributes under the cursor of the second virtual console, then changes the background color there:
      
      	#include <unistd.h>
      	#include <stdlib.h>
      	#include <stdio.h>
      	#include <fcntl.h>
      
      	int main() {
      		int fd;
      		char *device = "/dev/vcsa2";
      		struct {unsigned char lines, cols, x, y;} scrn;
      		char ch, attrib;
      
      		fd = open(device, O_RDWR);
      		if (fd < 0) {
      			perror(device);
      			exit(1);
      		}
      		(void)read(fd, &scrn, 4);
      		(void)lseek(fd, 4 + 2*(scrn.y*scrn.cols + scrn.x), 0);
      		(void)read(fd, &ch, 1);
      		(void)read(fd, &attrib, 1);
      		printf("ch='%c' attrib=0x%02x\n", ch, attrib);
      		attrib ^= 0x10;
      		(void)lseek(fd, -1, 1);
      		(void)write(fd, &attrib, 1);
      		return 0;
      	}
      

  • FILES
      /dev/vcs[0-63]
      /dev/vcsa[0-63]
  • AUTHOR
      Andries Brouwer <aeb@cwi.nl>
  • HISTORY
      Introduced with version 1.1.92 of the Linux kernel.
  • SEE ALSO
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