mknod
MKNOD(8) System Manager's Manual MKNOD(8)
NAME
mknod – make device special file
SYNOPSIS
mknod [-F format] name [c | b] major minor
mknod [-F format] name [c | b] major unit subunit
mknod name [c | b] number
mknod name w
DESCRIPTION
The mknod command creates device special files.
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 | w
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. Whiteout nodes are type w. 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.
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 BSD/OS 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)
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