xref: /freebsd/sbin/mknod/mknod.8 (revision a220d00e74dd245b4fca59c5eca0c53963686325)
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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
81.Pa /dev/MAKEDEV
82or
83.Pa /usr/src/sys/conf/majors .
84.It Ar minor
85The minor device number tells the kernel which subunit
86the node corresponds to on the device; for example,
87a subunit may be a filesystem partition
88or a tty line.
89.It Ar owner : Ns Ar group
90The
91.Ar owner
92.Ar group
93operand pair is optional, however, if one is specified, they both must be
94specified.
95The
96.Ar owner
97may be either a numeric user ID or a user name.
98If a user name is also a numeric user ID, the operand is used as a
99user name.
100The
101.Ar group
102may be either a numeric group ID or a group name.
103Similar to the user name,
104if a group name is also a numeric group ID, the operand is used as a
105group name.
106.El
107.Pp
108Major and minor device numbers can be given in any format acceptable to
109.Xr strtoul 3 ,
110so that a leading
111.Ql 0x
112indicates a hexadecimal number, and a leading
113.Ql 0
114will cause the number to be interpreted as octal.
115.Sh COMPATIBILITY
116The
117.Xr chown 8
118like functionality is specific to
119.Fx
120and was added so that
121.Pa /dev/MAKEDEV
122wound not depend on
123.Pa /usr
124being mounted.
125.Sh SEE ALSO
126.Xr mkfifo 1 ,
127.Xr mknod 2 ,
128.Xr chown 8 ,
129.Xr MAKEDEV 8
130.Sh HISTORY
131A
132.Nm
133command appeared in
134.At v6 .
135