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 BSD 4 38.Sh NAME 39.Nm mknod 40.Nd build special file 41.Sh SYNOPSIS 42.Nm mknod 43.Ar name 44.Op Cm c | Cm b 45.Ar major minor 46.Sh DESCRIPTION 47The 48.Nm mknod 49command creates device special files. 50Normally the shell script 51.Pa /dev/MAKEDEV 52is used to create special files for commonly known devices; it executes 53.Nm 54with the appropriate arguments and can make all the files required for the 55device. 56.Pp 57To make nodes manually, the four required arguments are: 58.Pp 59.Bl -tag -width indent 60.It Ar name 61Device name, for example 62.Dq sd 63for a SCSI disk on an HP300 or a 64.Dq pty 65for pseudo-devices. 66.It Cm b | Cm c 67Type of device. If the 68device is a block type device such as a tape or disk drive which needs 69both cooked and raw special files, 70the type is 71.Cm b . 72All other devices are character type devices, such as terminal 73and pseudo devices, and are type 74.Cm c . 75.It Ar major 76The major device number is an integer number which tells the kernel 77which device driver entry point to use. To learn what 78major device number to use for a particular device, check the file 79.Pa /dev/MAKEDEV 80to see if the device is known, or check 81the system dependent device configuration file: 82.Bd -filled -offset indent 83.Dq Pa /usr/src/sys/conf/device. Ns Em architecture 84.Ed 85.Pp 86(for example 87.Pa device.hp300 ) . 88.It Ar minor 89The minor device number tells the kernel which subunit 90the node corresponds to on the device; for example, 91a subunit may be a filesystem partition 92or a tty line. 93.El 94.Pp 95Major and minor device numbers can be given in any format acceptable to 96.Xr strtoul 3 , 97so that a leading 98.Ql 0x 99indicates a hexadecimal number, and a leading 100.Ql 0 101will cause the number to be interpreted as octal. 102.Sh SEE ALSO 103.Xr mkfifo 1 , 104.Xr mknod 2 , 105.Xr MAKEDEV 8 106.Sh HISTORY 107A 108.Nm 109command appeared in 110.At v6 . 111