1 .\" $Id: MAKEDEV.man,v 2.2 1995/05/21 17:55:30 alfie Exp $
2 .TH MAKEDEV 8 "14th August 1994" Linux "Linux Programmer's Manual"
4 MAKEDEV \- create devices
6 .B "cd dev; ./MAKEDEV -V"
8 .B "cd dev; ./MAKEDEV [ -n ] [ -v ] update"
10 .BI "cd dev; ./MAKEDEV [ -n ] [ -v ] [ -d ]" " device ..."
13 is a script that will create the devices in \fC/dev\fP used to interface
14 with drivers in the kernel.
16 Note that programs giving the error ``ENOENT: No such file or
17 directory'' normally means that the device file is missing, whereas
18 ``ENODEV: No such device'' normally means the kernel does not have the
19 driver configured or loaded.
23 Print out version (actually RCS version information) and exit.
26 Do not actually update the devices, just print the actions that would be
30 Delete the devices. The main use for this flag is by
35 Be verbose. Print out the actions as they are performed. This is the
36 same output as produced by
39 Since there is currently no standardisation in what names are used for
40 system users and groups, it is possible that you may need to modify
42 to reflect your site's settings. Near the top of the file is a mapping
43 from device type to user, group and permissions (e.g. all CD-ROM devices
44 are set from the \fC$cdrom\fP variable). If you wish to change the
45 defaults, this is the section to edit.
51 This only works on kernels which have \fC/proc/interrupts\fP (introduced
52 during 1.1.x). This file is scanned to see what devices are currently
53 configured into the kernel, and this is compared with the previous
54 settings stored in the file called \fCDEVICES\fP.
55 Devices which are new since then or have a different major number are
56 created, and those which are no longer configured are deleted.
59 Create a generic subset of devices. This is the standard devices, plus
60 floppy drives, various hard drives, pseudo-terminals, console devices,
61 basic serial devices, busmice, and printer ports.
68 \- acess to physical memory;
70 \- access to kernel virtual memory;
72 \- null device (infinite sink);
74 \- access to I/O ports;
76 \- null byte source (infinite source);
78 \- symlink to /proc/kcore (for kernel debugging);
80 \- always returns ENOSPACE on write;
84 \- to access the controlling tty of a process.
89 This is a script that can create any local devices.
94 This creates the devices associated with the console. This is the virtual
99 can be from 0 though 63. The device tty0 is the currently active vt, and
100 is also known as \fCconsole\fP. For each vt, there are two devices
104 which are used to generate screen-dumps of the vt (the
109 includes the attributes).
114 Serial ports and corresponding dialout device. For device
116 there is also the device
118 which is used to dial out with. This can avoid the need for cooperative
119 locks in simple situations.
122 Dial-in and dial-out devices for the cyclades intelligent I/O serial card.
123 The dial in device is
125 and the corresponding dial-out device is
127 By default devices for 7 lines are created, but this can be changed to
128 15 by removing the comment.
133 Each possible argument will create a bank of 16 master and slave
134 pairs. The current kernel (1.2) is limited to 64 such pairs.
135 The master pseudo-terminals are
136 .BR pty[p-s][0-9a-f] ,
138 .BR tty[p-s][0-9a-f] .
143 Standard parallel ports. The devices are created
148 These correspond to ports at 0x3bc, 0x378 and 0x278.
149 Hence, on some machines, the first printer port may actually be
163 The various bus mice devices. This creates the following devices:
165 (Logitech bus mouse),
169 (Microsoft Inport bus mouse) and
171 (ATI XL bus mouse) and
186 Floppy disk devices. The device
188 is the device which autodetects the format, and the additional devices are
189 fixed format (whose size is indicated in the name).
190 The other devices are named as
194 identifies the type of floppy disk (d = 5.25" DD, h = 5.25" HD, D = 3.5"
195 DD, H = 3.5" HD, E = 3.5" ED). The number
197 represents the capacity of that format in K. Thus the standard formats
206 For more information see Alain Knaff's fdutils package.
212 are floppy disks on the first controller, and devices
216 are floppy disks on the second controller.
219 AT hard disks. The device
221 provides access to the whole disk, with the partitions being
223 The four primary partitions are
227 with the logical partitions being numbered from
231 (A primary partition can be made into an extended partition, which can hold
232 4 logical partitions).
233 By default, only the devices for 4 logical partitions are made. The
234 others can be made by uncommenting them.
236 Drives hda and hdb are the two on the first controller. If using the new
237 IDE driver (rather than the old HD driver), then hdc and hdd are the two
238 drives on the secondary controller. These devices can also be used to
239 acess IDE CDROMs if using the new IDE driver.
242 XT hard disks. Partitions are the same as IDE disks.
245 SCSI hard disks. The partitions are similar to the IDE disks, but there
246 is a limit of 11 logical partitions
250 This is to allow there to be 8 SCSI disks.
253 Loopback disk devices. These allow you to use a regular file as a
254 block device. This means that images of filesystems can be mounted,
255 and used as normal. This creates 8 devices loop0 through loop7.
260 SCSI tapes. This creates the rewinding tape device
262 and the non-rewinding tape device
266 QIC-80 tapes. The devices created are
274 Floppy driver tapes (QIC-117). There are 4 methods of access depending on
275 the floppy tape drive. For each of access methods 0, 1, 2 and 3, the
280 (non-rewinding) are created. For compatability, devices
296 Sony CDU-31A CD player.
302 Sony CDU-535 CD player.
305 LMS/Philips CD player.
308 Sound Blaster CD player. The kernel is capable of supporting 16 CDROMs,
309 each of which is accessed as
311 These are assigned in groups of 4 to each controller.
317 .\" NEC CDR-260 (note: this will probably be obsoleted by the new IDE driver).
322 Logitech ScanMan32 & ScanMan 256.
325 Mustek M105 Handscanner.
328 A4Tek Color Handscanner.
333 This creates the audio devices used by the sound driver. These include
341 Devices for the PC Speaker sound driver. These are
350 Generic SCSI devices. The devices created are
354 allow arbitary commands to be sent to any SCSI device. This allows for
355 querying information about the device, or controlling SCSI devices that
356 are not one of disk, tape or CDROM (e.g. scanner, writeable CDROM).
359 To allow an arbitary program to be fed input from file descriptor
363 as the file name. This also creates
368 (Note, these are just symlinks into /proc/self/fd).
371 Devices (and symlinks) needed by the IBCS2 emulation.
374 Devices for power management.
377 Driver for DCF-77 radio clock.
380 Kernel modules demonstration device. See the modules source.
383 Linux used to have devices in /dev for controlling network devices, but
384 that is no longer the case. To see what network devices are known by the
385 kernel, look at /proc/net/dev.
387 Linux Allocated Devices, maintained by H.\ Peter Anvin,
388 <Peter.Anvin@linux.org>.
390 Nick Holloway, <Nick.Hollowa
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