[James E. Kulp <jek at SCRC-VIXEN>: [Jonathan Payne <jpayne at bbn-vax>: Suspending login shell]]

[MBM at mit-xx]

From:  Michael B McIlrath <MBM at mit-xx>

Return-path: <jek at SCRC-VIXEN>
Received: from SCRC-HOUSATONIC by SCRC-TENEX with CHAOS; Mon 22-Aug-83 09:07:03-EDT
Date: Monday, 22 August 1983, 09:07-EDT
From: James E. Kulp <jek at SCRC-VIXEN>
Subject: [Jonathan Payne <jpayne at bbn-vax>: Suspending login shell]
To: Michael B McIlrath <MBM at MIT-XX>
Cc: jek at SCRC-TENEX
In-reply-to: The message of 22 Aug 83 08:13-EDT from Michael B McIlrath <MBM at XX>

    Date: 22 Aug 1983 0813-EDT
    From: Michael B McIlrath <MBM at MIT-XX>
    Date: Fri, 19 Aug 83  9:06:39 EDT
    From: Jonathan Payne <jpayne at bbn-vax>
    Recently I was wondering why you can't detach yourself from the system,
    and then attach from somewhere else, like on tops-20.  Then I remembered
    what csh says when you try to suspend your login shell:
	    Can't suspend a login shell (yet).

    Does that mean somebody is planning to implement the equivilent of detach
    and attach?  And would it be difficult?


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I've thought about this a lot, since its the main outstanding UNIX network
functionality lossage that I can think of.  Unfortunately there is no
appropriate data structure which can hold that state of a "session" after
your carrier (virtual or otherwise) drops.  The cheap way to do this is
by creating a new software tty driver which is just a detached tty that
doesn't do anything.  The right way is to have a data structure called
a session, but this would involve many global changes.  But my days
of making major changes to UNIX (and probably my ability to get them
adopted by Berkeley) are over.  I'm almost to the point of doing this
(the former), since its so annoying.
(Sometimes one more message is enough to get me going).
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