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.\" 34.Dd December 11, 1993 35.Dt MKNOD 8 36.Os BSD 4 37.Sh NAME 38.Nm mknod 39.Nd build special file 40.Sh SYNOPSIS 41.Nm mknod 42.Ar name 43.Op Cm c | Cm b 44.Ar major minor 45.Sh DESCRIPTION 46The 47.Nm mknod 48command creates device special files. 49Normally the shell script 50.Pa /dev/MAKEDEV 51is used to create special files for commonly known devices; it executes 52.Nm mknod 53with the appropriate arguments and can make all the files required for the 54device. 55.Pp 56To make nodes manually, the four required arguments are: 57.Pp 58.Bl -tag -width majorx 59.It Ar name 60Device name, for example 61.Dq sd 62for a SCSI disk on an HP300 or a 63.Dq pty 64for pseudo-devices. 65.It Cm b | Cm c 66Type of device. If the 67device is a block type device such as a tape or disk drive which needs 68both cooked and raw special files, 69the type is 70.Cm b . 71All other devices are character type devices, such as terminal 72and pseudo devices, and are type 73.Cm c . 74.It Ar major 75The major device number is an integer number which tells the kernel 76which device driver entry point to use. To learn what 77major device number to use for a particular device, check the file 78.Pa /dev/MAKEDEV 79to see if the device is known, or check 80the system dependent device configuration file: 81.Bd -filled -offset indent 82.Dq Pa /usr/src/sys/conf/device. Ns Em architecture 83.Ed 84.Pp 85(for example 86.Pa device.hp300 ) . 87.It Ar minor 88The minor device number tells the kernel which subunit 89the node corresponds to on the device; for example, 90a subunit may be a filesystem partition 91or a tty line. 92.El 93.Pp 94Major and minor device numbers can be given in any format acceptable to 95.Xr strtoul 3 , 96so that a leading 97.Ql 0x 98indicates a hexadecimal number, and a leading 99.Ql 0 100will cause the number to be interpreted as octal. 101.Sh SEE ALSO 102.Xr mknod 2 , 103.Xr MAKEDEV 8 104.Sh HISTORY 105A 106.Nm 107command appeared in 108.At v6 . 109