1.\" $OpenBSD: mknod.8,v 1.17 2009/03/21 18:07:41 sobrado 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. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 16.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 17.\" without specific prior written permission. 18.\" 19.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 20.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 21.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 22.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 23.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 24.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 25.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 26.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 27.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 28.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 29.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 30.\" 31.\" @(#)mknod.8 8.2 (Berkeley) 12/11/93 32.\" 33.Dd $Mdocdate: March 21 2009 $ 34.Dt MKNOD 8 35.Os 36.Sh NAME 37.Nm mknod 38.Nd make device special files 39.Sh SYNOPSIS 40.Nm mknod 41.Op Fl m Ar mode 42.Ar name 43.Op Cm b \*(Ba c 44.Ar major minor 45.Nm mknod 46.Op Fl m Ar mode 47.Ar name 48.Cm p 49.Sh DESCRIPTION 50The 51.Nm 52command creates device special files. 53Normally the shell script 54.Pa /dev/MAKEDEV 55is used to create special files for commonly known devices; it executes 56.Nm 57with the appropriate arguments and can make all the files required for the 58device. 59.Pp 60The options are as follows: 61.Bl -tag -width Ds 62.It Fl m Ar mode 63Set the file permission bits of newly created device special files to 64.Ar mode . 65The mode argument can be in any of the formats specified to the 66.Xr chmod 1 67utility. 68If a symbolic mode is specified, the operators 69.Ql + 70and 71.Ql - 72are interpreted relative to an initial mode of 73.Dq a=rw . 74.El 75.Pp 76To make nodes manually, the arguments are: 77.Bl -tag -width majorx 78.It Ar name 79Device or FIFO name. 80For example 81.Dq sd 82for a SCSI disk or a 83.Dq pty 84for pseudo-devices. 85FIFOs may be named arbitrarily by the user. 86.It Cm b \*(Ba c \*(Ba p 87Type of device or FIFO. 88If the device is a block type device such as a tape or disk drive which needs 89both cooked and raw special files, 90the type is 91.Cm b . 92All other devices are character type devices, such as terminal 93and pseudo devices, and are type 94.Cm c . 95A FIFO (also known as a named pipe) is type 96.Cm p . 97.It Ar major 98The major device number is an integer number which tells the kernel 99which device driver entry point to use. 100To learn what major device number to use for a particular device, 101check the file 102.Pa /dev/MAKEDEV 103to see if the device is known. 104.It Ar minor 105The minor device number tells the kernel which subunit 106the node corresponds to on the device; for example, 107a subunit may be a filesystem partition 108or a tty line. 109.Pp 110Major and minor device numbers can be given in any format acceptable to 111.Xr strtoul 3 , 112so that a leading 113.Dq 0x 114indicates a hexadecimal number, and a leading 115.Dq 0 116will cause the number to be interpreted as octal. 117.El 118.Sh SEE ALSO 119.Xr chmod 1 , 120.Xr ksh 1 , 121.Xr mkfifo 1 , 122.Xr mkfifo 2 , 123.Xr mknod 2 , 124.Xr MAKEDEV 8 125.Sh STANDARDS 126.Nm 127also exists as a built-in to 128.Xr ksh 1 . 129.Sh HISTORY 130A 131.Nm 132command appeared in 133.At v6 . 134