TIOCNOTTY dissasociates the calling process from the starting tty. { /* associated with the starting tty */ int fd; if( (fd = open("/dev/tty",0)) < 0) err("can`t open /dev/tty"); else { (void)ioctl(fd,TIOCNOTTY,(char *)0); (void)close(fd); } } /* unassociated with any tty */