1.\" $NetBSD: mknod.8,v 1.10 1997/06/30 17:17:56 phil Exp $ 2.\" 3.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1991, 1993 4.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 5.\" 6.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 7.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 8.\" are met: 9.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 10.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 11.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 12.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 13.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 14.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software 15.\" must display the following acknowledgement: 16.\" This product includes software developed by the University of 17.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. 18.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 19.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 20.\" without specific prior written permission. 21.\" 22.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 23.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 24.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 25.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 26.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 27.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 28.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 29.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 30.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 31.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 32.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 33.\" 34.\" @(#)mknod.8 8.2 (Berkeley) 12/11/93 35.\" 36.Dd December 11, 1993 37.Dt MKNOD 8 38.Os BSD 4 39.Sh NAME 40.Nm mknod 41.Nd build special file 42.Sh SYNOPSIS 43.Nm mknod 44.Ar name 45.Op Cm c | Cm b 46.Ar major minor 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 mknod 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 majorx 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.El 95.Sh SEE ALSO 96.Xr mknod 2 , 97.Xr MAKEDEV 8 , 98.Xr mkfifo 1 , 99.Xr mkfifo 2 100.Sh HISTORY 101A 102.Nm 103command appeared in 104.At v6 . 105