Error Message: "Not a typewriter"

Information

Some of the most confusing error messages in HP-UX are the following:

Not a typewriter and ENOTTY

These error messages are not only limited to HP-UX, but are also common UNIX messages. In some systems, the errors may appear as the following:

Inappropriate ioctl for device and Not a teletype

Details

This messages are usually not the result of an error related to the I/O device. If a library routine fails for some reason unrelated to a system call, and a programmer calls the normal error reporting routine perror() on every failure, the leftover ENOTTY will result in an inappropriate Not a typewriter error message. So for Telnet and SSH cases, if a user name is not found in the password file, this error may occur.

This error is also related to terminal settings (Old UNIX systems use the term typewriter and of course, it can be said that this error message is obsolete). It means that the program attempts to perform some I/O operation that would be legal on a terminal, and returns with an error. The errors may be related to the terminal emulators if a remote connection is attempted.

In conclusion, to understand the exact issue, other symptoms and error messages need to be investigated.