1.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1991, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 6.\" are met: 7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 8.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 10.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 11.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 12.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software 13.\" must display the following acknowledgement: 14.\" This product includes software developed by the University of 15.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. 16.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 17.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 18.\" without specific prior written permission. 19.\" 20.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 21.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 22.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 23.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 24.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 25.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 26.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 27.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 28.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 29.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 30.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 31.\" 32.\" @(#)mknod.8 8.2 (Berkeley) 12/11/93 33.\" $FreeBSD$ 34.\" 35.Dd December 11, 1993 36.Dt MKNOD 8 37.Os 38.Sh NAME 39.Nm mknod 40.Nd build special file 41.Sh SYNOPSIS 42.Nm 43.Ar name 44.Op Cm c | Cm b 45.Ar major minor 46.Op Ar owner : Ns Ar group 47.Sh DESCRIPTION 48The 49.Nm 50command creates device special files. 51Normally the shell script 52.Pa /dev/MAKEDEV 53is used to create special files for commonly known devices; it executes 54.Nm 55with the appropriate arguments and can make all the files required for the 56device. 57.Pp 58To make nodes manually, the four required arguments are: 59.Pp 60.Bl -tag -width indent 61.It Ar name 62Device name, for example 63.Dq sd 64for a SCSI disk on an HP300 or a 65.Dq pty 66for pseudo-devices. 67.It Cm b | Cm c 68Type of device. 69If the 70device is a block type device such as a tape or disk drive which needs 71both cooked and raw special files, 72the type is 73.Cm b . 74All other devices are character type devices, such as terminal 75and pseudo devices, and are type 76.Cm c . 77.It Ar major 78The major device number is an integer number which tells the kernel 79which device driver entry point to use. To learn what 80major device number to use for a particular device, check the file 81.Pa /dev/MAKEDEV 82to see if the device is known, or check 83the system dependent device configuration file: 84.Bd -ragged -offset indent 85.Dq Pa /usr/src/sys/conf/device. Ns Aq Ar architecture 86.Ed 87.Pp 88(for example 89.Pa device.hp300 ) . 90.It Ar minor 91The minor device number tells the kernel which subunit 92the node corresponds to on the device; for example, 93a subunit may be a filesystem partition 94or a tty line. 95.It Ar owner : Ns Ar group 96The 97.Ar owner 98.Ar group 99operand pair is optional, however, if one is specified, they both must be 100specified. 101The 102.Ar owner 103may be either a numeric user ID or a user name. 104If a user name is also a numeric user ID, the operand is used as a 105user name. 106The 107.Ar group 108may be either a numeric group ID or a group name. 109Similar to the user name, 110if a group name is also a numeric group ID, the operand is used as a 111group name. 112.El 113.Pp 114Major and minor device numbers can be given in any format acceptable to 115.Xr strtoul 3 , 116so that a leading 117.Ql 0x 118indicates a hexadecimal number, and a leading 119.Ql 0 120will cause the number to be interpreted as octal. 121.Sh COMPATIBILITY 122The 123.Xr chown 8 124like functionality is specific to 125.Fx 126and was added so that 127.Pa /dev/MAKEDEV 128wound not depend on 129.Pa /usr 130being mounted. 131.Sh SEE ALSO 132.Xr mkfifo 1 , 133.Xr mknod 2 , 134.Xr chown 8 , 135.Xr MAKEDEV 8 136.Sh HISTORY 137A 138.Nm 139command appeared in 140.At v6 . 141