Hi Linus, Alan,

some applications do need to know where the console (/dev/console)
actually maps to. For processes with a controlling terminal, you may see 
it in /proc/$$/stat. However, daemons are supposed to run detached (they
don't want to get killed by ^C) and some processes like init or bootlogd 
do still need to be able to find out.

The kernel provides this information -- sort of:
It contains the TIOCTTYGSTRUCT syscall which returns a struct. Of course,
it changes between different kernel archs and revisions, so using it is
an ugly hack. Grab for TIOCTTYGSTRUCT_HACK in the bootlogd.c file of the
sysvinit sources. Shudder!

Having a new ioctl, just returning the device no is a much cleaner solution,
IMHO. So, I created the TIOCGDEV, which Miquel suggests in his sysvinit
sources. It makes querying the actual console device as easy as 
int tty; ioctl (0, TIOCGDEV, &tty);

Patches against 2.2.18 and 2.4.0-testX are attached.
Please apply.
-- 
Kurt Garloff  <garloff@suse.de>                          Eindhoven, NL
GPG key: See mail header, key servers         Linux kernel development
SuSE GmbH, Nuernberg, FRG                               SCSI, Security