diff --git a/contrib/cmd/recvtty/recvtty.go b/contrib/cmd/recvtty/recvtty.go
index 177a89359ed..ebb69197c3e 100644
--- a/contrib/cmd/recvtty/recvtty.go
+++ b/contrib/cmd/recvtty/recvtty.go
@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@ import (
 	"os"
 	"strings"
 
+	"github.com/opencontainers/runc/libcontainer"
 	"github.com/opencontainers/runc/libcontainer/utils"
 	"github.com/urfave/cli"
 )
@@ -100,6 +101,9 @@ func handleSingle(path string) error {
 	if err != nil {
 		return err
 	}
+	if err = libcontainer.SaneTerminal(master); err != nil {
+		return err
+	}
 
 	// Copy from our stdio to the master fd.
 	quitChan := make(chan struct{})
diff --git a/libcontainer/console_linux.go b/libcontainer/console_linux.go
index 5e364a88a1e..477b5602e76 100644
--- a/libcontainer/console_linux.go
+++ b/libcontainer/console_linux.go
@@ -21,9 +21,6 @@ func newConsole() (Console, error) {
 	if err != nil {
 		return nil, err
 	}
-	if err := saneTerminal(master); err != nil {
-		return nil, err
-	}
 	console, err := ptsname(master)
 	if err != nil {
 		return nil, err
@@ -133,12 +130,12 @@ func ptsname(f *os.File) (string, error) {
 	return fmt.Sprintf("/dev/pts/%d", n), nil
 }
 
-// saneTerminal sets the necessary tty_ioctl(4)s to ensure that a pty pair
+// SaneTerminal sets the necessary tty_ioctl(4)s to ensure that a pty pair
 // created by us acts normally. In particular, a not-very-well-known default of
 // Linux unix98 ptys is that they have +onlcr by default. While this isn't a
 // problem for terminal emulators, because we relay data from the terminal we
 // also relay that funky line discipline.
-func saneTerminal(terminal *os.File) error {
+func SaneTerminal(terminal *os.File) error {
 	// Go doesn't have a wrapper for any of the termios ioctls.
 	var termios unix.Termios
 
diff --git a/libcontainer/integration/execin_test.go b/libcontainer/integration/execin_test.go
index 2922eaad842..0f662bd3fbe 100644
--- a/libcontainer/integration/execin_test.go
+++ b/libcontainer/integration/execin_test.go
@@ -300,6 +300,7 @@ func TestExecInTTY(t *testing.T) {
 				err: err,
 			}
 		}
+		libcontainer.SaneTerminal(f)
 		dc <- &cdata{
 			c: libcontainer.ConsoleFromFile(f),
 		}
diff --git a/tty.go b/tty.go
index 9824df144c5..52e0254a1ca 100644
--- a/tty.go
+++ b/tty.go
@@ -74,6 +74,9 @@ func (t *tty) recvtty(process *libcontainer.Process, socket *os.File) error {
 	if err != nil {
 		return err
 	}
+	if err = libcontainer.SaneTerminal(f); err != nil {
+		return err
+	}
 	console := libcontainer.ConsoleFromFile(f)
 	go io.Copy(console, os.Stdin)
 	t.wg.Add(1)