xref: /freebsd/sbin/mknod/mknod.8 (revision daf1cffce2e07931f27c6c6998652e90df6ba87e)
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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 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.Op owner:group
47.Sh DESCRIPTION
48The
49.Nm mknod
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. If the
69device is a block type device such as a tape or disk drive which needs
70both cooked and raw special files,
71the type is
72.Cm b .
73All other devices are character type devices, such as terminal
74and pseudo devices, and are type
75.Cm c .
76.It Ar major
77The major device number is an integer number which tells the kernel
78which device driver entry point to use.  To learn what
79major device number to use for a particular device, check the file
80.Pa /dev/MAKEDEV
81to see if the device is known, or check
82the system dependent device configuration file:
83.Bd -filled -offset indent
84.Dq Pa /usr/src/sys/conf/device. Ns Em architecture
85.Ed
86.Pp
87(for example
88.Pa device.hp300 ) .
89.It Ar minor
90The minor device number tells the kernel which subunit
91the node corresponds to on the device; for example,
92a subunit may be a filesystem partition
93or a tty line.
94.It Ar "owner \: group"
95The
96.Ar owner
97.Ar group
98operand pair is optional, however, if one is specified, they both must be
99specified.
100The
101.Ar owner
102may be either a numeric user ID or a user name.
103If a user name is also a numeric user ID, the operand is used as a
104user name.
105The
106.Ar group
107may be either a numeric group ID or a group name.
108Simular to the user name,
109if a group name is also a numeric group ID, the operand is used as a
110group name.
111.El
112.Pp
113Major and minor device numbers can be given in any format acceptable to
114.Xr strtoul 3 ,
115so that a leading
116.Ql 0x
117indicates a hexadecimal number, and a leading
118.Ql 0
119will cause the number to be interpreted as octal.
120.Sh COMPATIBILITY
121The
122.Xr chown 8
123like functionality is specific to
124.Fx
125and was added so that
126.Pa /dev/MAKEDEV
127wound not depend on
128.Pa /usr
129being mounted.
130.Sh SEE ALSO
131.Xr mkfifo 1 ,
132.Xr mknod 2 ,
133.Xr MAKEDEV 8 ,
134.Xr chown 8
135.Sh HISTORY
136A
137.Nm
138command appeared in
139.At v6 .
140