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.\"     @(#)mknod.8	8.2 (Berkeley) 12/11/93
.\"
.Dd $Mdocdate: March 27 2010 $
.Dt MKNOD 8
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm mknod
.Nd make device special files
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm mknod
.Op Fl m Ar mode
.Ar name
.Cm b\*(Bac
.Ar major minor
.Nm mknod
.Op Fl m Ar mode
.Ar name
.Cm p
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
command creates device special files.
Normally the shell script
.Pa /dev/MAKEDEV
is used to create special files for commonly known devices; it executes
.Nm
with the appropriate arguments and can make all the files required for the
device.
.Pp
The options are as follows:
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl m Ar mode
Set the file permission bits of newly created device special files to
.Ar mode .
The mode argument can be in any of the formats specified to the
.Xr chmod 1
utility.
If a symbolic mode is specified, the operators
.Ql +
and
.Ql -
are interpreted relative to an initial mode of
.Dq a=rw .
.El
.Pp
To make nodes manually, the arguments are:
.Bl -tag -width majorx
.It Ar name
Device or FIFO name.
For example
.Dq sd
for a SCSI disk or a
.Dq pty
for pseudo-devices.
FIFOs may be named arbitrarily by the user.
.It Cm b \*(Ba c \*(Ba p
Type of device or FIFO.
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
.Cm b .
All other devices are character type devices, such as terminal
and pseudo devices, and are type
.Cm c .
A FIFO (also known as a named pipe) is type
.Cm p .
.It Ar major
The major device number is an integer number which tells the kernel
which device driver entry point to use.
To learn what major device number to use for a particular device,
check the file
.Pa /dev/MAKEDEV
to see if the device is known.
.It Ar 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.
.Pp
Major and minor device numbers can be given in any format acceptable to
.Xr strtoul 3 ,
so that a leading
.Dq 0x
indicates a hexadecimal number, and a leading
.Dq 0
will cause the number to be interpreted as octal.
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr chmod 1 ,
.Xr ksh 1 ,
.Xr mkfifo 1 ,
.Xr mkfifo 2 ,
.Xr mknod 2 ,
.Xr MAKEDEV 8
.Sh STANDARDS
.Nm
also exists as a built-in to
.Xr ksh 1 .
.Sh HISTORY
A
.Nm
command appeared in
.At v6 .