MAKEDEV - create devices


SYNOPSIS

       cd dev; ./MAKEDEV -V
       cd  dev;  ./MAKEDEV [ -d directory ] [ -c configdir ] [ -m
       maxdevices ] [-n] [-v] [-i] [-M] [-S]  device ...


DESCRIPTION

       MAKEDEV is a program that will create the devices in  /dev
       used to interface with drivers in the kernel.

       Note that programs giving the error ``ENOENT: No such file
       or directory'' normally means  that  the  device  file  is
       missing, whereas ``ENODEV: No such device'' normally means
       the kernel does not have the driver configured or  loaded.


OPTIONS

       -V     Print out version and exit.

       -n     Do  not actually update the devices, just print the
              actions that would be performed.

       -M     Create symlinks, directories, and sockets belonging
              to  the  current  user,  and  print out the list of
              devices which would be created in a format which is
              understood by RPM.

       -S     Do  not actually update the devices, just print the
              actions that would be performed in a  format  which
              can be fed to a shell.

       -d directory
              Create  the  devices under directory instead of the
              default (usually /dev).

       -v     Be verbose.  Print out the actions as they are per­
              formed.  This is the same output as produced by the
              -n option.

       -i     Ignore errors parsing configuration files.


CUSTOMIZATION

       Since there is currently no standardization in what  names
       are  used for system users and groups, it is possible that
       you may need to modify MAKEDEV's  configuration  files  to
       reflect your site's settings.


DEVICES

       Certain  devices  are  required for minimal functionality.
              These are:
              mem  -  access to physical memory; kmem - access to
              kernel virtual memory; null - null device (infinite
              sink); port - access to I/O ports; zero - null byte

              /proc/kcore  (for  kernel debugging); full - always
              returns ENOSPACE on write; ram - ramdisk; tty -  to
              access the controlling tty of a process.

       Virtual Terminals

       console
              This  creates  the devices associated with the con­
              sole.  These are the virtual terminals ttyx,  where
              x  can be from 0 though 63.  The device tty0 is the
              currently active VT, and is also known as  console.
              For each VT, there are two devices: vcsx and vcsax,
              which can be used to generate screen-dumps  of  the
              VT  (vcsx  is just the text, and vcsax includes the
              attributes).

       Serial Devices

       ttyS{0..63}
              Serial ports.

       Pseudo Terminals

       pty[p-s]
              Each possible argument will create  a  bank  of  16
              master  and  slave pairs.  The current kernel (1.2)
              is limited to 64 such pairs.   The  master  pseudo-
              terminals  are pty[p-s][0-9a-f], and the slaves are
              tty[p-s][0-9a-f].

       Parallel Ports

       lp     Standard parallel ports.  The devices  are  created
              lp0, lp1, and lp2.

       Bus Mice

       busmice
              The  various  bus  mice  devices.  This creates the
              following devices: logimouse (Logitech bus  mouse),
              psmouse   (PS/2-style  mouse),  msmouse  (Microsoft
              Inport bus mouse) and atimouse (ATI XL  bus  mouse)
              and jmouse (J-mouse).

       Joystick Devices

       js     Joystick.  Creates js0 and js1.

       Disk Devices

       fd[0-7]
              Floppy  disk devices.  The device fdx is the device
              which autodetects the format,  and  the  additional

              in the name).   The  other  devices  are  named  as
              fdxLn.   The single letter L identifies the type of
              floppy disk (d = 5.25" DD, h = 5.25" HD, D  =  3.5"
              DD, H = 3.5" HD, E = 3.5" ED).  The number n repre­
              sents the capacity of that format in K.   Thus  the
              standard  formats  are  fdxd360, fdxh1200, fdxD720,
              fdxH1440, and fdxE2880.

              For more  information  see  Alain  Knaff's  fdutils
              package.

              Devices  fd0*  through fd3* are floppy disks on the
              first controller, and devices fd4* through fd7* are
              floppy disks on the second controller.

       hd[a-d]
              AT  hard  disks.  The device hdx provides access to
              the  whole  disk,   with   the   partitions   being
              hdx[0-20].   The  four  primary partitions are hdx1
              through hdx4, with  the  logical  partitions  being
              numbered from hdx5 though hdx20.  (A primary parti­
              tion can be made into an extended partition,  which
              can  hold  4 logical partitions).  By default, only
              the devices for 4 logical partitions are made.  The
              others can be made by uncommenting them.

              Drives  hda  and  hdb are the two on the first con­
              troller.  If using the new IDE driver (rather  than
              the  old  HD  driver), then hdc and hdd are the two
              drives on the secondary controller.  These  devices
              can  also  be used to acess IDE CDROMs if using the
              new IDE driver.

       xd[a-d]
              XT hard disks.  Partitions  are  the  same  as  IDE
              disks.

       sd[a-z], sd[a-c][a-z], sdd[a-x]
              SCSI hard disks.  The partitions are similar to the
              IDE disks, but there is a limit of 11 logical  par­
              titions  (sdx5  through  sdx15).   This is to allow
              there to be 128 SCSI disks.

       loop   Loopback disk devices.  These allow you  to  use  a
              regular  file  as  a block device.  This means that
              images of filesystems can be mounted, and  used  as
              normal.   This  creates  16  devices  loop0 through
              loop15.

       Tape Devices

       st[0-7]
              SCSI tapes.  This creates the rewinding tape device


       qic    QIC-80 tapes.  The devices created are rmt8, rmt16,
              tape-d, and tape-reset.

       ftape  Floppy driver tapes (QIC-117).  There are 4 methods
              of  access depending on the floppy tape drive.  For
              each of access methods 0, 1, 2 and 3,  the  devices
              rftx (rewinding) and nrftx (non-rewinding) are cre­
              ated.  For compatability, devices ftape and  nftape
              are symlinks to rft0 and nrft0 respectively.

       CDROM Devices

       scd[0-7]
              SCSI CD players.

       sonycd Sony CDU-31A CD player.

       mcd    Mitsumi CD player.

       cdu535 Sony CDU-535 CD player.

       lmscd  LMS/Philips CD player.

       sbpcd{,1,2,3}
              Sound  Blaster CD player.  The kernel is capable of
              supporting 16 CDROMs, each of which is accessed  as
              sbpcd[0-9a-f].   These  are assigned in groups of 4
              to each controller.  sbpcd is a symlink to  sbpcd0.

       Scanner

       logiscan
              Logitech ScanMan32 & ScanMan 256.

       m105scan
              Mustek M105 Handscanner.

       ac4096 A4Tek Color Handscanner.

       Audio

       sound  This  creates  the  audio devices used by the sound
              driver.  These include mixer, sequencer,  dsp,  and
              audio.

       Miscellaneous

       sg     Generic  SCSI devices.  The devices created are sga
              through sgh  and  sg0  through  sg7.   These  allow
              arbitary  commands  to  be sent to any SCSI device.
              This allows  for  querying  information  about  the
              device,  or  controlling  SCSI devices that are not

              RW).

       fd     To  allow  an arbitary program to be fed input from
              file descriptor x, use /dev/fd/x as the file  name.
              This  also  creates  /dev/stdin,  /dev/stdout,  and
              /dev/stderr.  (Note, these are just  symlinks  into
              /proc/self/fd).

       ibcs2  Devices  (and  symlinks) needed by the IBCS2 emula­
              tion.

       apm    Devices for power management.

       Network Devices
              Linux used to have devices in /dev for  controlling
              network  devices,  but  that is no longer the case.
              To see what network devices are known by  the  ker­
              nel, look in /proc/net/dev.

       Other Devices
              Note  that the list of devices above is not exhaus­
              tive.  MAKEDEV can create more devices nodes.   Its
              aim  is  to  be able to create everything listed in
              the devices.txt file distributed with Linux 2.4.


CONFIGURATION

       MAKEDEV doesn't actually know anything about devices.   It
       reads   all  of  the  information  from  files  stored  in
       /etc/makedev.d.  MAKEDEV will read any and  all  files  in
       the subdirectory, processing lines in them like so:

       devices
              [b|c]  mode  owner  group major minor inc count fmt
              [base]
              count devices will be created, with permissions set
              to  mode  and  owned by owner and group.  The first
              device will be named fmt,  and  additional  devices
              will  be created if count is larger than 1.  If fmt
              contains a C-style formatting string,  it  will  be
              filled  with  the sum of base and zero.  Subsequent
              devices will be filled with the sum of base and n *
              inc, where n is the order this device is being cre­
              ated in.  If the  format  string  did  not  already
              include  a  format specifier, a "%d" will automati­
              cally be appended to it to make this work.

       symbolic links
              l linkname target
              A symbolic link pointing to target  named  linkname
              will be created.

              a alias value
              Any  commands  that  create  devices for alias will
              also include  devices  that  would  be  crated  for
              value.


SEE ALSO

       Linux  Allocated  Devices,  maintained  by H. Peter Anvin,
       <Peter.Anvin@linux.org>.


BUGS

       Let's hope not.  If we're lucky, any problems  we'll  find
       will  be  confined  to the configuration files, which were
       written by examining the devices.txt file.


AUTHOR

       Nalin Dahyabhai, based largely on work done by  Nick  Hol­
       loway and Michael K. Johnson.


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