MKNOD(8) BSD System Manager's Manual MKNOD(8)NAME
mknod — make device special file
SYNOPSIS
mknod [-F format] name [c | b] major minor
[-F format] name [c | b] major unit subunit
name [c | b] number
name [p]
DESCRIPTION
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.
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 | p
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. To create
named pipes the type p can be used.
major The major device number is an integer number which tells the ker‐
nel 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 speci‐
fication is only supported by the bsdos format, for compatibility
with the BSD/OS mknod(8) .)
Device numbers for different operating systems may be packed in a differ‐
ent 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 ALSOmkfifo(1), mkfifo(2), mknod(2), MAKEDEV(8)HISTORY
A mknod command appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX. The -F option appeared
in NetBSD 1.4.
NetBSD 1.4 September 11, 1998 NetBSD 1.4
