xref: /freebsd/sbin/mknod/mknod.8 (revision 729362425c09cf6b362366aabc6fb547eee8035a)
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
50utility creates device special files.
51To make nodes manually, the four required arguments are:
52.Pp
53.Bl -tag -width indent
54.It Ar name
55Device name, for example
56.Dq sd
57for a SCSI disk on an HP300 or a
58.Dq pty
59for pseudo-terminals.
60.It Cm b | Cm c
61Type of device.
62If the
63device is a block type device such as a tape or disk drive which needs
64both cooked and raw special files,
65the type is
66.Cm b .
67All other devices are character type devices, such as terminal
68and pseudo devices, and are type
69.Cm c .
70.It Ar major
71The major device number is an integer number which tells the kernel
72which device driver entry point to use.  To learn what
73major device number to use for a particular device, check
74.Pa /usr/src/sys/conf/majors .
75.It Ar minor
76The minor device number tells the kernel which subunit
77the node corresponds to on the device; for example,
78a subunit may be a file system partition
79or a tty line.
80.It Ar owner : Ns Ar group
81The
82.Ar owner
83.Ar group
84operand pair is optional, however, if one is specified, they both must be
85specified.
86The
87.Ar owner
88may be either a numeric user ID or a user name.
89If a user name is also a numeric user ID, the operand is used as a
90user name.
91The
92.Ar group
93may be either a numeric group ID or a group name.
94Similar to the user name,
95if a group name is also a numeric group ID, the operand is used as a
96group name.
97.El
98.Pp
99Major and minor device numbers can be given in any format acceptable to
100.Xr strtoul 3 ,
101so that a leading
102.Ql 0x
103indicates a hexadecimal number, and a leading
104.Ql 0
105will cause the number to be interpreted as octal.
106.Sh COMPATIBILITY
107The
108.Xr chown 8 Ns - Ns
109like functionality is specific to
110.Fx .
111.Sh SEE ALSO
112.Xr mkfifo 1 ,
113.Xr mknod 2 ,
114.Xr chown 8
115.Sh HISTORY
116A
117.Nm
118utility appeared in
119.At v6 .
120