MAKEDEV - create devices

cd /dev; ./MAKEDEV [ -n ] [ -v ] [ update ]

cd /dev; ./MAKEDEV [ -n ] [ -v ] [ generic ] [ local ] [ group-keyword ... device ... ]

cd /dev; ./MAKEDEV [ -n ] [ -v ] [ -d ] device ...

MAKEDEV is a script 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.

-n

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

-d

Delete the devices. The main use for this flag is by MAKEDEV itself.

-v

Be verbose. Print out the actions as they are performed. This is the same output as produced by -n.

Since there is currently no standardisation in what names are used for system users and groups, it is possible that you may need to modify MAKEDEV to reflect your site's settings. Near the top of the file is a mapping from device type to user, group and permissions (e.g. all CD-ROM devices are set from the $cdrom variable). If you wish to change the defaults, this is the section to edit.

update

This only works on kernels which have /proc/interrupts (introduced during 1.1.x). This file is scanned to see what devices are currently configured into the kernel, and this is compared with the previous settings stored in the file called DEVICES. Devices which are new since then or have a different major number are created, and those which are no longer configured are deleted.

generic

Create a generic subset of devices. This subset consists of the standard devices, plus floppy drives, various hard drives, CD-ROM drives, pseudo-terminals, console devices, basic serial devices, busmice, audio devices, video framebuffers, printer ports, and some specialized devices. The generic subset varies somewhat according to architecture; see the /dev/MAKEDEV script itself for details.

local

This simply runs MAKEDEV.local. This is a script that can create any local devices.

MAKEDEV creates groups of devices when passed keywords for the group. Each listing below shows the MAKEDEV keyword and then lists the devices which will be created. Many devices can also be specified individually.

std

Creates this group of standard devices: mem for access to physical memory, kmem for access to kernel virtual memory, null the null device (infinite sink), port for access to I/O ports, zero the null byte source (infinite source), core, a symlink to /proc/kcore (for kernel debugging), full which always returns ENOSPACE on write, random and urandom random byte generators, and tty to access the controlling tty of a process. The loopback disk devices loop0 through loop7 are also created in the std group. These allow you to use a regular file as a block device. A filesystem image can be mounted, and used as though it were a filesystem on a partition or other block device. loop may also be used as a separate keyword to create the 8 loop devices. Finally, the ram group of memory devices is also created by the std keyword (see below).

ram

This is the keyword used to generate the ramdisk devices ram{0..16} and the ram symlink. This group does not include initrd.

initrd

Ramdisk which has been pre-initialized by a bootloader. initrd is not created in the ram group; it must be specifically included in the command line if you want it to be created.

cpu or microcode

Creates the CPU microcode update interface in the cpu/ folder, with devices microcode, and subfolders {0..3} each containing devices msr and cpuid.

rom

Creates the rom{0..7} rrom{0..7} flaxh{0..7} and rflash{0..7} flash memory card devices. rrom and rflash devices are read-only.

console

This keyword creates virtual consoles; tty{0..63} devices, the corresponding vcs and vcsa devices which are used to generate screen-dumps, and the console device itself plus appropriate symlinks. To create the console device alone, use consoleonly. The device tty0 is the currently active virtual console. The console device serves the same function.

pty

This keyword creates the Pseudo-TTY masters pty{a..e,p..z} and corresponding tty{a..e,p..z} devices, along with ptmx. Each possible argument will create a bank of 16 master and slave pairs. The master pseudo-terminals are pty{p..s}{0..9a..f}, and the slaves are tty{p..s}{0..9a..f}.

ttyS{0..63}

Standard serial ports. There is no group keyword, you must specify these individually. However ttyS{0..3} are created under the generic option for most architectures.

cyclades or ttyC

Creates Cyclades ports ttyC{0..31}.

digi or ttyD

Creates Digiboard serial card ports ttyD{0..15}.

stallion or ttyE

Creates Stallion devices ttyE{0..255} and staliomem{0..3}.

computone or ttyF

Creates CompuTone serial card ports ttyH{0..255} and special devices ip2ipl{0,4,8,12} and ip2stat{1,5,9,13}.

chase or ttyH

Creates Chase serial card ports ttyH{0..15}.

isdnmodem or ttyI

Creates isdn4linux virtual modem ports ttyI{0..63}.

isdn-tty

Also creates isdn4linux virtual modem ports ttyI{0..7}.

isdnbri

Creates ISDN BRI driver devices isdn{0..63} isdnctrl{0..63} ippp{0..63} and isdninfo.

isdn-io

Also creates ISDN BRI driver devices isdn{0..7} isdnctrl{0..7} ippp{0..7} and isdninfo. The isdn-ippp keyword can be used separately to create only the ippp{0..7} devices.

ppp

Creates a device independent PPP interface.

dcbri

Creates Spellcaster DataComm/BRI ISDN card devices dcbri{0..3}.

riscom or ttyL

Creates Riscom serial card ports ttyL{0..15}.

PAM or ttyM

Creates PAM multimodem (or ISI serial card) ports ttyM{0..15}.

ESP or ttyP

Creates ESP ports ttyP{0..4}.

rocketport or ttyR

Creates Rocketport devices ttyR{0..63}.

ttyV

Creates Comtrol VS-1000 serial controller ports ttyV{0..15}.

specialixIO8 or ttyW

Creates Specialix IO8+ ports ttyW{0..15}.

specialix or ttyX

Creates Specialix ports ttyX{0..15}.

i2c

Creates i2c{0..7} devices for the I2C bus interface.

tlk

Philips SAA5249 Teletext signal decoder {2.6} ports tlk{0..3}.

lp

Creates the standard parallel ports lp0, lp1, and lp2 normally used for printers. These correspond to ports at 0x3bc, 0x378 and 0x278. Hence, on some machines, the first printer port may actually be lp1.

par

Alternative to lp. The same ports are created, but are named par{0..2} instead of lp{0..2}.

parport

Creates raw parallel ports parport0, parport1, and parport2.

slm

Creates the Atari SLM ACSI laser printer (68k/Atari) ports slm{0..3}.

pg

Parallel port generic ATAPI interface (devices pg{0..3}.

paride

Parallel port IDE disk devices pd{a..d} with 15 partitions on each. Also creates pcd{0..3} and pf{0..3}.

netlink or tap

Creates NetLink devices route skip fwmonitor and tap{0..15} Ethertap devices. The tapx virtual ethernet device was designed as low level kernel support for Ethernet tunneling. Userland application can write Ethernet frame to /dev/tapX and the kernel will receive this frame from tapX interface. Every frame the kernel writes to a tapX interface can be read by a userland application from the corresponding /dev/tapX device.

enskip

ENskip kernel encryption package.

qng

ComScire Quantum Noise Generator.

ipsec

The Free S/WAN implementation of IPSEC.

adb

On powerpc, creates adb for the Apple Data Bus and adbmouse. On m68k, adb creates the ACSI disk device adb and partitions adb1 through adb15.

hamradio

Creates the scc{0..7} and bc{0..3} device groups.

comx

Creates COMX devices comx{0..4}.

irda

Creates IrCOMM devices (IrDA serial/parallel emulation) ircomm0 ircomm1 irlpt0 and irlpt1.

comedi

Control and Measurement devices comedi{0..3}.

busmice

This keyword creates the following devices: logibm (Logitech bus mouse), psaux (PS/2-style mouse), inportbm (Microsoft Inport bus mouse) and atibm (ATI XL bus mouse) and jbm (J-mouse).

m68k-mice

Creates mouse devices for the m68k architecture, including: amigamouse, amigamouse1, atarimouse and adbmouse.

input

On powerpc, this keyword creates the input folder which groups input devices mice, mouse{0..3}, event{0..3}, and js{0..3} (joystick), and creates these devices inside.

js

Joystick. Creates js0 and js1.

djs

Digital joystick. Creates djs0 and djs1.

usb

USB is a general purpose I/O bus which can serve many purposes. The usb keyword creates a usb folder, and devices in the folder: lp{0..15} (printer), mouse{0..15} (USB connected mice), ez{0..15} (firmware loaders) scanner{0..15} (scanner interfaces), ttyACM{0..15} and ttyUSB{0..15} (dialout devices), and rio500 the Diamond Rio 500 device.

fd{0..7}

Floppy disk devices. The device fdx is the device which autodetects the format, and the additional devices are fixed format (whose size is indicated in the name). The other devices are named as fdx{dqhu}n. The single letter (d, q, hor u) signifies the type of drive: 5.25" Double Density (d), 5.25" Quad Density (q), 5.25" High Density (h) or 3.5" (any model, u). The number n represents the capacity of that format in K. Thus the standard formats are fdxd360, fdxh1200, fdx720, fdx1440, and fdx2880.

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.

fd{0..7}-bare

Creates just the autodetecting floppy device specified, without the fixed format devices.

hd{a..l}

AT (ide) hard disks. The device hdx provides access to the whole disk, with the partitions being hdx{1..63}. For i386, the four primary partitions are hdx1 through hdx4, with the logical partitions being numbered from hdx5 though hdx20. (A primary partition can be made into an extended partition, which can hold 4 logical partitions). Other architectures may not differentiate partition types. By default, devices for 20 logical partitions are made. The kernel supports up to 63 partitions per device.

Drives hda and hdb are the two on the primary controller hdc and hdd are the two drives on the secondary controller. These devices can also be used to access IDE CDROMs. Additional devices hd{e..l} can be created.

xd{a..d}

XT hard disks. Partitions are the same as IDE disks, except only 8 partitions are created.

sd{a..h}

SCSI hard disks. The partitions are similar to the IDE disks, but there is a limit of 11 logical partitions sdx5 through sdx15, to allow there to be 8 SCSI disks on a system (addresses 0 through 7).

sd{i..z}

and sd{a..d}{a..z} The kernel (and MAKEDEV) can handle up to 128 SCSI disks (up to sddx). 15 partition devices are created for each.

eda edb

MCA ESDI hard disk. Partitions are handled the same as hd.

dasd{a..z}

Direct Access Storage Devices for the s390 architecture. Currently only one device partition is created (for example, dasda1).

ada{a..p}

ACSI disk (68k/Atari). 15 partitions are created for each.

dac960.{0..7}

Mylex DAC960 PCI RAID controller. For this device, an rd directory is created. 32 logical devices cxd{0..31} are created for each unit x specified, each with 7 partitions cxd{0..31}p{1..7}. The dac960 keyword will create all 7 units at once.

dpti

Adaptec I2O RAID and DPT SmartRAID V I2O controllers. Creates 7 devices for handling up to 7 controllers.

ataraid.{0..7}

Obsolete, device not in current devices.txt. For this device, an ataraid directory is created. dx is created for each unit x specified, and 15 partitions dxp{1..15}. The ataraid keyword will create all 7 units at once.

i2o.hd{a..d}{a..z}

I2O based harddisk drives. Device nodes are located in the i2o directory. The filename is followed by a number that specifies the partition on each disk. The numbers are handled the same as hd.

ida.{0..7}

Compaq Intelligent Drive Array. For this device, an ida directory is created. 16 logical devices cxd{0..15} are created for each unit x specified, each with 15 partitions cxd{0..15}p{1..15}. The ida keyword will create the first three units.

cciss.{0..7}

Compaq Next Generation Drive Array. For this device, a cciss directory is created. 16 logical devices cxd{0..15} are created for each unit x specified, each with 15 partitions cxd{0..15}p{1..15}. The cciss keyword will create the first three units.

md

Creates Metadisk (RAID) disk array with 16 devices.

st{0..7}

SCSI tape devices. This creates the rewinding tape device stx and the non-rewinding tape device nstx, for each of modes 0 through 3.

qic

QIC-11, -24, -120, and -150 tapes. The devices created are ntpqic11 tpqic11 ntpqic24 tpqic24 ntpqic120 tpqic120 ntpqic150 and tpqic150 tape devices, along with 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 qftx zqftx and rawqftx (rewinding) and nqftx nzqftx nrawqdtx (non-rewinding) are created. For compatibility, devices ftape and nftape are symlinks to qft0 and nqft0 respectively.

ht0

Creates IDE tape devices ht0 and nht0.

pt{0..3}

Creates parallel port ATAPI tape devices pt{0..3} and npt{0..3}.

sr or scd or scd-all

Creates scd{0..16} SCSI CD players and sr{0..16} symlinks for these devices. cdrom is a symlink which can be created by the user to the active CD device. It is not created by MAKEDEV.

pktcdvd

Provides packet writing devices pktcdvd{0..3} for CD/DVD.

pcd{0..3}

Parallel port ATAPI CD-ROM devices

sonycd

Sony CDU-31a CD-ROM

mcd

Mitsumi CD-ROM

mcdx

Obsolete, device not in current devices.txt.

cdu535

Sony CDU-535 CD-ROM

lmscd

Philips LMS CM-205 CD-ROM. The newer name for this device is cm205, but MAKEDEV creates only lmscd at this time.

cm206cd

Philips LMS CM-206 CD-ROM

bpcd

MicroSolutions BackPack parallel port CD-ROM (Obsolete - use pcd)

sbpcd{0..15}

Matsushita (Panasonic/SoundBlaster) CD-ROM. Units {0..3} are created with the keyword sbpcd.

aztcd

Aztech/Orchid/Okano/Wearnes CD-ROM

gscd

GoldStar CD-ROM

optcd

Optics Storage CD-ROM

sjcd

Sanyo CD-ROM

hitcd

Hitachi CD-ROM

logiscan

Logitech ScanMan32 & ScanMan 256.

m105scan

Mustek M105 Handscanner.

ac4096

A4Tek Color Handscanner.

audio

This creates the audio devices used by the sound driver. These include mixer mixer{1..3} (Mixer controls), sequencer (Audio sequencer), dsp dsp{1..3} (Digital audio), sndstat (Sound card status information), audioctl (SPARC audio control device) and audio audio{1..3} (Sun-compatible digital audio). MIDI devices are midi00 through midi03, midi{0..3}, rmidi{0..3}, smpte{0..3}. In addition, devices mpu401data and mpu401stat are created.

pcaudio

Devices for the PC Speaker sound driver. These are pcmixer, pxsp, and pcaudio.

fb

Creates framebuffer devices fb{0..7}, fb{0..7}current, fb{0..7}autodetect.

fb{0..7}

If the framebuffer number x is specifed, a group of fbxuser{0..7} devices is created.

3dfx

is the 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics device.

agpgart

AGP Graphics Address Remapping Table

video video4linux v4l radio

Each of these keywords produces the same result: Video capture/overlay devices video{0..63}, Radio devices radio{0..63}, Teletext devices vtx{0..31}, and Vertical blank interrupt devices vbi{0..31}. In addition, the winradio0 and winradio1 devices, and vtx and vttuner devices, and symlinks radio video and vbi are created.

srnd

miroMEDIA Surround board devices srnd0 and srnd1.

fgrab

Matrox Meteor frame grabber {2.6}. Creates mmetfgrab, wvisfgrab, iscc0, iscc1, isccctl0, isccctl1, dcxx0, and dcxx1.

sg or sg-all

Generic SCSI devices. The devices created are sg0 through sg16. These allow arbitary commands to be sent to any SCSI device, to query information or control SCSI devices that are not disk, tape or CDROM (for example, scanner or writeable CDROM).

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 socksys spx (and symlinks nfsd XOR) needed by the IBCS2 emulation.

apm

apm_bios Advanced Power Management BIOS device.

dcf

Driver for DCF-77 radio clock.

helloworld

Kernel modules demonstration device. See the modules source.

xfs or arla

Arla XFS network file system.

capi

CAPI 2.0 interface ports capi20{01..20}.

ubd

User-mode block devices ubd{0..255}.

nb{0..7}

Network block devices.

raw

Creates the raw block device interface raw device, the rawctl symlink, and raw{1..8}.

raw1394

IEEE 1394 (Firewire).

misc

This keyword creates all the following devices. You may find the device explanations in other categories in this man page, many under OTHER DEVICES below. logibm, psaux, inportbm, atibm, jbm, amigamouse, atarimouse, sunmouse, amigamouse1, smouse, pc110pad, adbmouse, beep, modreq, watchdog, temperature, hwtrap, exttrp, apm_bios, rtc, openprom, relay8, relay16, msr, pciconf, nvram, hfmodem, led, mergemem, pmu.

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 kernel, look at /proc/net/dev.

Many of these devices are architecture-specific.

scc

Z8530 HDLC driver (HAM radio)

bc

Baycom radio modem (HAM radio)

cfs0 or cfs or coda

Coda network file system

sunmouse

Sun mouse

smouse

Simple serial mouse driver

pc110pad

IBM PC-110 digitizer pad

vrtpanel

Vr41xx embedded touch panel

vpcmouse

Connectix Virtual PC Mouse

beep

Fancy beep device

modreq

Kernel module load request {2.6}

watchdog

Watchdog timer port

temperature

Machine internal temperature

hwtrap

Hardware fault trap

exttrp

External device trap

rtc

Real Time Clock

efirtc

Real Time Clock

openprom

SPARC OpenBoot PROM

relay8

Berkshire Products Octal relay card

relay16

Berkshire Products ISO-16 relay card

msr

x86 model-specific registers {2.6}

pciconf

PCI configuration space

nvram

Non-volatile configuration RAM

hfmodem

Soundcard shortwave modem control {2.6}

graphics

Linux/SGI graphics device

opengl

Linux/SGI OpenGL pipe

gfx

Linux/SGI graphics effects device

lcd

Front panel LCD display

led

Front panel LEDs

mergemem

Memory merge device

pmu

Macintosh PowerBook power manager

isictl

MultiTech ISICom serial control

ac

Applicom Intl Profibus card

nwbutton

Netwinder external button

nwdebug

Netwinder debug interface

nwflash

Netwinder flash memory

userdma

User-space DMA access

smbus

System Management Bus

lik

Logitech Internet Keyboard

ipmo

Intel Intelligent Platform Management

vmmon

VMWare virtual machine monitor

tcldrv

Technology Concepts serial control

specialix_sxctl

Specialix serial control

specialix_rioctl

Specialix RIO serial control

smapi or thinkpad

IBM Thinkpad smapi device, and a symlink thinkpad.

srripc

QNX4 API IPC manager

usemaclone

Semaphore clone device

ipmi or ipmikcs

Intelligent Platform Management

uctrl

SPARCbook 3 microcontroller

gtrsc

Gorgy Timing radio clock

cbm

Serial CBM bus

jsflash

JavaStation OS flash SIMM

xsvc

High-speed shared-mem/semaphore service

vrbuttons

Vr41xx button input device

toshiba

Toshiba laptop SMM support

perfctr

Performance-monitoring counters

intel_rng

Intel i8x0 random number generator

atomicps

Atomic shapshot of process state data

irnet

IrNET device

smbusbios

SMBus BIOS

ussp_ctl

User space serial port control

crash

Mission Critical Linux crash dump facility

nas_xbus

NAS xbus LCD/buttons access

d7s

SPARC 7-segment display

zkshim

Zero-Knowledge network shim control

sexec

Signed executable interface

kchuid

Inter-process chuid control

mptctl

Message passing technology (MPT) control

button/gulpb

Transmeta GULP-B buttons

compaq/cpqphpc

Compaq PCI Hot Plug Controller

compaq/cpqrid

Compaq Remote InsightDriver

elographics/e2201

Elographics touchscreen E271-2201

fujitsu/apanel

Fujitsu/Siemens application panel

i2o/ctl

I2O configuration manager

impi/bt

IMPI coprocessor block transfer

impi/smic

IMPI coprocessor stream interface

input/mouse

Linux/SGI Irix emulation mouse

input/keyboard

Linux/SGI Irix emulation keyboard

modems/mwave

MWave modem firmware upload

mvista/hssdsi

Montavista PICMG hot swap system driver

mvista/hasi

Montavista PICMG high availability

net/tun

TAP/TUN network device

ni/natmotn

National Instruments Motion

scanners/cuecat

:CueCat barcode scanner

touchscreen/ucb1x00

UCB 1x00 touchscreen

touchscreen/mk712

MK712 touchscreen

video/em8300

EM8300 DVD decoder control

video/em8300_mv

EM8300 DVD decoder video

video/em8300_ma

EM8300 DVD decoder audio

video/em8300_sp

EM8300 DVD decoder subpicture

watchdogs/{0..3}

Watchdog devices 0 through 3

Linux Allocated Devices, maintained by H. Peter Anvin, <Peter.Anvin@linux.org>, and devices.txt in the Linux kernel source.

Nick Holloway, rewritten and updated by Chris Tillman