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MKNOD(8)		    System Manager's Manual		      MKNOD(8)

NAME
       mknod --	build special file

SYNOPSIS
       mknod name
       mknod name [b | c] major	minor [owner:group]

DESCRIPTION
       The mknod utility is deprecated on modern FreeBSD systems.

       The  mknod  utility  creates device special files.  To make nodes manu-
       ally, the arguments are:

       name    Device name, for	example	/dev/da0 for a SCSI disk or /dev/pts/0
	       for pseudo-terminals.

       b | c   Type of device.	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 b.  All other	devices	are character type de-
	       vices, such as terminal and pseudo devices, and are type	c.

       major   The  major  device  number is an	integer	number which tells the
	       kernel which device driver entry	point to use.

       minor   The minor device	number tells the kernel	which subunit the node
	       corresponds to on the device; for example, a subunit may	 be  a
	       file system partition or	a tty line.

       owner:group
	       The  owner  group  operand pair is optional, however, if	one is
	       specified, they both must be specified.	The owner may  be  ei-
	       ther  a numeric user ID or a user name.	If a user name is also
	       a numeric user ID, the operand is used as  a  user  name.   The
	       group  may be either a numeric group ID or a group name.	 Simi-
	       lar to the user name, if	a group	name is	also a	numeric	 group
	       ID, the operand is used as a group name.

       Major and minor device numbers can be given in any format acceptable to
       strtoul(3),  so that a leading `0x' indicates a hexadecimal number, and
       a leading `0' will cause	the number to be interpreted as	octal.

       The mknod utility can be	used to	recreate deleted device	nodes under  a
       devfs(5)	 mount	point  by invoking it with only	a filename as an argu-
       ment.  Example:

	     mknod /dev/cd0

       where /dev/cd0 is the name of the deleted device	node.

COMPATIBILITY
       The chown(8)-like functionality is specific to FreeBSD.

       As of FreeBSD 4.0, block	devices	were deprecated	in favour of character
       devices.	 As of FreeBSD 5.0, device nodes are  managed  by  the	device
       file  system  devfs(5),	making	the  mknod utility superfluous.	 As of
       FreeBSD 6.0 device nodes	may be created in  regular  file  systems  but
       such nodes cannot be used to access devices.

SEE ALSO
       mkfifo(1), mknod(2), devfs(5), chown(8)

HISTORY
       A mknod utility appeared	in Version 4 AT&T UNIX.

FreeBSD	13.0			October	3, 2016			      MKNOD(8)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=mknod&sektion=8&manpath=FreeBSD+13.0-RELEASE>

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