* Peter Hurley | 2014-09-25 07:31:32 [-0400]:

I just verified that GNU readline6 uses ioctl(TCSETSW, ...) to do the set_termios
(which is the ioctl that libc should use for tcsetattr(TCSADRAIN)).

Maybe this userspace is using a readline()-alike that has a bug by not using the
correct tcsetattr() action?

set_termios() has an opt argument. While doing ":n" in vi I see two invocations
with "opt == 8" which stands for TCSETS.
browsing through vi's code I stumbled upon 

|static void rawmode(void)
|{
?
|    tcsetattr_stdin_TCSANOW(&term_vi);
|}
|int FAST_FUNC tcsetattr_stdin_TCSANOW(const struct termios *tp)
|{
|    return tcsetattr(STDIN_FILENO, TCSANOW, tp);
|}

and this is probably what you meant. There is also
| static void cookmode(void)
| {
|     fflush_all();
|     tcsetattr_stdin_TCSANOW(&term_orig);
| }

However I don't see __tty_perform_flush() in kernel invoked.

Or maybe the glibc-equivalent has the bug, and tcsetattr(TCSADRAIN) is not using
ioctl(TCSETSW)?

libc is "GNU C Library 2.20". 

Regards,
Peter Hurley

Sebastian