Forgot to close a device file ... what now?

[Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams]

On 15 Sep 2001, Jyrinx wrote:

> Hey - Python newbie here. I'm running Python on Red Hat Linux 7.1. At
> the interpreter prompt, I ran "fd = open("/dev/ttyS0", "wb")", then
> went off to do something else, came back, forgot to close the file,
> then quit Python. Next time I ran the interpreter, I tried to open the
> serial port again, but I got an error saying the file is locked or
> busy.
>
> What can I do to reopen it, short of resetting the system?

Interesting. Normally Python should close the file. If not Python, then C
should close it. If C doesn't close the file, then there may be a problem.

Try 'lsof | grep ttyS0' and see if the file is still being held open. If so,
then you can kill the program that is holding it open. If not, then a reboot
is called for.

-- 
Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams  <ignacio at openservices.net>