Console taking 100% CPU

Greetings!

I'm having an issue where the 'console' process is taking 100% of my CPU.

This happens whenever controlling terminal vanishes in an unexpected
manner -- sorry for being vague, but I'm not certain exactly what's
happening TTY-wise.

Anyway, it's super easy to duplicate with:
$ echo | console myport
...or...
$ (sleep 3) | console myport

When the pipeline sends EOF, console spins out of control.  I'd like
it to die instead :-)

I noticed this because I'm trying to use xinetd to run console.  If
the user's telnet session is aborted I get the same result.

The goal of my project is to make TCP ports on a single server act
like a huge terminal server appliance.  The
xinetd/chroot/runuser/console/conserver mess will be a big mux,
allowing me to present any console port in the environment directly on
TCP ports on the server.  Users won't need the 'console' binary, any
telnet client will do.

There's probably a better way to do this than having xinetd launch
console, but I'm not sure what it is.  This console CPU problem is a
show-stopper.

Thoughts on the CPU issue, or a better way to accomplish my goal?

Thanks very much!

/chris