The Linux tty command is a simple command line utility that is used to determine the terminal device associated with a given process. It is a useful tool for developers and system administrators who need to know the terminal device that is being used by a particular process.

To use the tty command, simply type tty at the command prompt and press Enter. This will display the name of the terminal device that is associated with the current shell. For example:

$ tty
/dev/pts/0

The tty command can also be used to determine the terminal device associated with a specific process. To do this, you can use the -p option followed by the PID (process ID) of the process. For example, to determine the terminal device associated with process ID 1234, you would use the following command:

$ tty -p 1234
/dev/pts/1

The tty command also has a number of other options that can be used to control the information displayed and the format of the output. For example, the -s option can be used to suppress the output of the command, so that it only returns an exit code indicating whether or not a terminal device was found. The -w option can be used to display the terminal device in a “wide” format, which includes the major and minor device numbers.

For example, to display the terminal device associated with process ID 1234 in wide format, you could use the following command:

$ tty -w -p 1234
/dev/pts/1 (deleted) (maj=136, min=1)

The tty command is a simple but useful tool for developers and system administrators who need to determine the terminal device associated with a particular process. Whether you are working on the command line or writing scripts and programs, the tty command can help you understand the terminal environment in which your processes are running.

Christian Wells