1.\" $OpenBSD: mknod.8,v 1.9 2000/03/18 22:55:59 aaron Exp $ 2.\" $NetBSD: mknod.8,v 1.9 1995/08/10 23:47:32 jtc Exp $ 3.\" 4.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1991, 1993 5.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 6.\" 7.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 8.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 9.\" are met: 10.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 11.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 12.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 13.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 14.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 15.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software 16.\" must display the following acknowledgement: 17.\" This product includes software developed by the University of 18.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. 19.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 20.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 21.\" without specific prior written permission. 22.\" 23.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 24.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 25.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 26.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 27.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 28.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 29.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 30.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 31.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 32.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 33.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 34.\" 35.\" @(#)mknod.8 8.2 (Berkeley) 12/11/93 36.\" 37.Dd April 18, 1999 38.Dt MKNOD 8 39.Os 40.Sh NAME 41.Nm mknod 42.Nd build special file 43.Sh SYNOPSIS 44.Nm mknod 45.Op Fl m Ar mode 46.Ar name 47.Op Cm c | Cm b 48.Ar major minor 49.Nm mknod 50.Op Fl m Ar mode 51.Ar name 52.Cm p 53.Sh DESCRIPTION 54The 55.Nm 56command creates device special files. 57Normally the shell script 58.Pa /dev/MAKEDEV 59is used to create special files for commonly known devices; it executes 60.Nm 61with the appropriate arguments and can make all the files required for the 62device. 63.Pp 64The options are as follows: 65.Bl -tag -width Ds 66.It Fl m Ar mode 67Set the file mode. 68.Ar mode 69may be absolute or symbolic, as described in 70.Xr chmod 1 . 71In symbolic mode strings, the 72.Ql + 73and 74.Ql - 75operators are interpreted relative to an assumed initial mode of 76.Dq a=rw . 77.El 78.Pp 79To make nodes manually, the arguments are: 80.Bl -tag -width majorx 81.It Ar name 82Device or FIFO name. 83For example 84.Dq sd 85for a SCSI disk or a 86.Dq pty 87for pseudo-devices. 88FIFOs may be named arbitrarily by the user. 89.It Cm b | Cm c | Cm p 90Type of device or FIFO. 91If the device is a block type device such as a tape or disk drive which needs 92both cooked and raw special files, 93the type is 94.Cm b . 95All other devices are character type devices, such as terminal 96and pseudo devices, and are type 97.Cm c . 98A FIFO (also known as a named pipe) is type 99.Cm p . 100.It Ar major 101The major device number is an integer number which tells the kernel 102which device driver entry point to use. 103To learn what major device number to use for a particular device, 104check the file 105.Pa /dev/MAKEDEV 106to see if the device is known. 107.It Ar minor 108The minor device number tells the kernel which subunit 109the node corresponds to on the device; for example, 110a subunit may be a filesystem partition 111or a tty line. 112.Pp 113Major and minor device numbers can be given in any format acceptable to 114.Xr strtoul 3 , 115so that a leading 116.Dq 0x 117indicates a hexadecimal number, and a leading 118.Dq 0 119will cause the number to be interpreted as octal. 120.El 121.Sh SEE ALSO 122.Xr chmod 1 , 123.Xr mkfifo 1 , 124.Xr mkfifo 2 , 125.Xr mknod 2 , 126.Xr MAKEDEV 8 127.Sh HISTORY 128A 129.Nm 130command appeared in 131.At v6 . 132