is it possible to reparent a job again?

[cevhyruz]

sometimes i’d like to reparent a process which i already reparented once. I tried what’s written on readme but doesnt seem to work for the second time

[rizzini]

Same here. It only works in the first time.

[yurenchen000]

meet the same situation.

i use reptyr -T $pid_of_the_bash to connect to a sshd bash session.

reptyr steal /dev/ptmx from the bash parent sshd process.
i guess if repty revert (give back) the ptmx fd, it will be able to reptyr again.

---

the fd of sshd (parent process of bash)

--- before.out	2025-09-05 04:23
+++ after.out	2025-09-05 04:22
@@ -1,14 +1,13 @@
 $ sudo ls -lv /proc/2868414/fd/
 total 0
 lrwx------ 1 root root 64 Sep  5 02:52 0 -> /dev/null
 lrwx------ 1 root root 64 Sep  5 02:52 1 -> /dev/null
 lrwx------ 1 root root 64 Sep  5 02:52 2 -> /dev/null
 lrwx------ 1 root root 64 Sep  5 02:52 3 -> 'socket:[820787309]'
 lrwx------ 1 root root 64 Sep  5 02:52 4 -> 'socket:[820785007]'
 lrwx------ 1 root root 64 Sep  5 02:52 5 -> 'socket:[820787086]'
 lrwx------ 1 root root 64 Sep  5 02:52 6 -> 'socket:[820786979]'
-lrwx------ 1 root root 64 Sep  5 02:52 7 -> /dev/ptmx
+lrwx------ 1 root root 64 Sep  5 02:52 7 -> /dev/null
 l-wx------ 1 root root 64 Sep  5 02:52 8 -> /run/systemd/sessions/77068.ref
-lrwx------ 1 root root 64 Sep  5 02:52 10 -> /dev/ptmx
-lrwx------ 1 root root 64 Sep  5 02:52 11 -> /dev/ptmx
+lrwx------ 1 root root 64 Sep  5 02:52 11 -> /dev/null

[yurenchen000]

reptyr steal /dev/ptmx from the bash parent sshd process.
i guess if repty revert (give back) the ptmx fd, it will be able to reptyr again.

Based on this principle, i did a quick fix (just for linux),
And it just works!! ✨

master...yurenchen000:reptyr:reptyr_again

now I can do retpry -T $the_pid again and again,
only last is alive. 🎉

NOTE: it's a quick fix, if the master process has more than 100 fd, it will broke.
NOTE: need input something (ex. Enter) to grab the session, others will exit automatically (or kill other)

disown a reptyr session (ex. detach from ssh)

//in other shell, ctrl+z reptyr
kill -SIGTSTP $pid_of_reptyr

//in reptyr shell
disown %job_of_reptyr