1.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1991, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" %sccs.include.redist.man% 5.\" 6.\" @(#)mknod.8 8.2 (Berkeley) 12/11/93 7.\" 8.Dd 9.Dt MKNOD 8 10.Os BSD 4 11.Sh NAME 12.Nm mknod 13.Nd build special file 14.Sh SYNOPSIS 15.Nm mknod 16.Ar name 17.Op Cm c | Cm b 18.Ar major minor 19.Sh DESCRIPTION 20The 21.Nm mknod 22command creates device special files. 23Normally the shell script 24.Pa /dev/MAKEDEV 25is used to create special files for commonly known devices; it executes 26.Nm mknod 27with the appropriate arguments and can make all the files required for the 28device. 29.Pp 30To make nodes manually, the four required arguments are: 31.Pp 32.Bl -tag -width majorx 33.It Ar name 34Device name, for example 35.Dq sd 36for a SCSI disk on an HP300 or a 37.Dq pty 38for pseudo-devices. 39.It Cm b | Cm c 40Type of device. If the 41device is a block type device such as a tape or disk drive which needs 42both cooked and raw special files, 43the type is 44.Cm b . 45All other devices are character type devices, such as terminal 46and pseudo devices, and are type 47.Cm c . 48.It Ar major 49The major device number is an integer number which tells the kernel 50which device driver entry point to use. To learn what 51major device number to use for a particular device, check the file 52.Pa /dev/MAKEDEV 53to see if the device is known, or check 54the system dependent device configuration file: 55.Bd -filled -offset indent 56.Dq Pa /usr/src/sys/conf/device. Ns Em architecture 57.Ed 58.Pp 59(for example 60.Pa device.hp300 ) . 61.It Ar minor 62The minor device number tells the kernel which subunit 63the node corresponds to on the device; for example, 64a subunit may be a filesystem partition 65or a tty line. 66.El 67.Sh SEE ALSO 68.Xr mknod 2 , 69.Xr makedev 8 70.Sh HISTORY 71A 72.Nm 73command appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX. 74