mknod - build special file
mknod [-m mode] name [c | b] major minor
mknod [-m mode] name p
The mknod command creates device special files. Normally
the shell
script /dev/MAKEDEV is used to create special files for commonly known
devices; it executes mknod with the appropriate arguments
and can make
all the files required for the device.
The options are as follows:
-m mode
Set the file mode. mode may be absolute or symbolic, as described
in chmod(1). In symbolic mode strings, the
`+' and `-'
operators are interpreted relative to an assumed
initial mode of
``a=rw''.
To make nodes manually, the arguments are:
name Device or FIFO name. For example ``sd'' for a SCSI
disk or a
``pty'' for pseudo-devices. FIFOs may be named arbitrarily by
the user.
b | c | p
Type of device or FIFO. 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. A
FIFO (also known as a named pipe) is type p.
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.
minor The minor device number tells the kernel which subunit the node
corresponds to on the device; for example, a subunit
may be a
filesystem partition or a tty line.
Major and minor device numbers can be given in any
format acceptable
to strtoul(3), so that a leading ``0x'' indicates a hexadecimal
number, and a leading ``0'' will cause the number to be interpreted
as octal.
chmod(1), mkfifo(1), mkfifo(2), mknod(2), MAKEDEV(8)
A mknod command appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX.
OpenBSD 3.6 April 18, 1999
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