MKNOD
Section: Maintenance Commands (8)
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BSD mandoc
NetBSD 1.4
NAME
mknod
- make device special file
SYNOPSIS
[-F format
]
name
[c | b
]
major minor
[-F format
]
name
[c | b
]
major unit subunit
name
[c | b
]
number
DESCRIPTION
The
command creates device special files.
Normally the shell script
/dev/MAKEDEV
is used to create special files for commonly known devices; it executes
with the appropriate arguments and can make all the files required for the
device.
To make nodes manually, the required arguments are:
- name
-
Device name, for example
``sd''
for a SCSI disk on an HP300 or a
``pty''
for pseudo-devices.
- b | c
-
Type of device. If the
device is a block type device such as a tape or disk drive which needs
both cooked and raw special files,
the type is
b
All other devices are character type devices, such as terminal
and pseudo devices, and are type
c
- major
-
The major device number is an integer number which tells the kernel
which device driver entry point to use. To learn what
major device number to use for a particular device, check the file
/dev/MAKEDEV
to see if the device is known, or check
the system dependent device configuration file:
``/usr/src/sys/conf/device. architecture
''
(for example
device.hp300 )
- minor
-
The minor device number tells the kernel which one of several similar
devices the node corresponds to; for example, it may be a specific serial
port or pty.
- unit and subunit
-
The unit and subunit numbers select a subset of a device; for example, the
unit may specify a particular SCSI disk, and the subunit a partition on
that disk. (Currently this form of specification is only supported by the
bsdos
format, for compatibility with the
Bs x
mknod(8).)
Device numbers for different operating systems may be packed in a different
format. To create device nodes that may be used by such an operating system
(e.g. in an exported file system used for netbooting), the
-F
option is used. The following formats are recognized:
native,
386bsd,
4bsd,
bsdos,
freebsd,
hpux,
isc,
linux,
netbsd,
osf1,
sco,
solaris,
sunos,
svr3,
svr4 and
ultrix.
Alternatively, a single opaque device number may be specified.
SEE ALSO
mkfifo(1),
mkfifo(2),
mknod(2),
MAKEDEV(8)
HISTORY
A
command appeared in
AT&T System
v6 .
The
-F
option appeared in
Nx 1.4 .
Index
- NAME
-
- SYNOPSIS
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- SEE ALSO
-
- HISTORY
-
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Time: 04:30:08 GMT, April 24, 2025