MKNOD(8)                OpenBSD System Manager's Manual               MKNOD(8)

NAME
     mknod - build special file



SYNOPSIS
     mknod name [c | b] major minor

DESCRIPTION
     The mknod command creates device special files.  Normally the shell
     script /dev/MAKEDEV is used to create special files for commonly known
     devices; it executes mknod with the appropriate arguments and can make
     all the files required for the device.

     To make nodes manually, the four required arguments are:

     name    Device name, for example ``sd'' for a SCSI disk on an HP300 or a
             ``pty'' for pseudo-devices.

     b | c   Type of device. If the device is a block type device such as a
             tape or disk drive which needs both cooked and raw special files,
             the type is b. All other devices are character type devices, such
             as terminal and pseudo devices, and are type c.

     major   The major device number is an integer number which tells the ker-
             nel which device driver entry point to use.  To learn what major
             device number to use for a particular device, check the file
             /dev/MAKEDEV to see if the device is known, or check the system
             dependent device configuration file:

                   ``/usr/src/sys/conf/device.architecture''

             (for example device.hp300).

     minor   The minor device number tells the kernel which subunit the node
             corresponds to on the device; for example, a subunit may be a
             filesystem partition or a tty line.

             Major and minor device numbers can be given in any format accept-
             able to strtoul(3),  so that a leading `0x' indicates a hexadeci-
             mal number, and a leading `0' will cause the number to be inter-
             preted as octal.

SEE ALSO
     mknod(2),  MAKEDEV(8)

HISTORY
     A mknod command appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX.

4th Berkeley Distribution      December 11, 1993                             1