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

NAME
     devd -- Device state change daemon

SYNOPSIS
     devd [-d]

DESCRIPTION
     The  devd	daemon provides a way to have userland programs run when certain
     kernel events happen.

     The following options are accepted.

     -d      Enable debugging messages and run in the foreground instead of  be-
	     coming a daemon.

IMPLEMENTATION NOTES
     devd is a system daemon that runs in the background all the time.	Whenever
     a device is added to or removed from the device tree, devd will execute ac-
     tions   specified	 in  devd.conf(5).   For  example,  devd  might  execute
     dhclient(8) when an ethernet adapter is added to the system  and  kill  the
     dhclient(8)  instance  when  the  same adapter is removed.  Another example
     would be for devd to use a table to locate  and  load  via  kldload(8)  the
     proper driver for an unrecognized device that is added to the system.

     devd  hooks into the devctl(4) device driver.  This device driver has hooks
     into the device configuration system.  When nodes are added or deleted from
     the tree, this device will deliver information about  the	event  to  devd.
     Once  devd  has parsed the message, it will search its action list for that
     kind of event and perform the action with the highest matching value.   For
     most  mundane  uses,  the default handlers are adequate.  However, for more
     advanced users, the power is present to tweak every aspect of what happens.

     devd reads /etc/devd.conf and uses that file  to  drive  the  rest  of  the
     process.	While  the format of this file is described in devd.conf(5) some
     basics are covered here.  In the options section, one can	define	multiple
     directories  to search for config files.  All files in each of these direc-
     tories are parsed.  These files are intended to be installed by third party
     vendors that wish to hook into the devd system without modifying the user's
     other config files.

SEE ALSO
     devctl(4), devd.conf(5)

AUTHORS
     M. Warner Losh

BUGS
     devd currently always runs "/etc/devd-generic $device $startstop"	for  all
     device events, regardless of what the config file says to do.

FreeBSD 5.0			October 17, 2002			 DEVD(8)

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