SPECIAL FILES(7) DOMAIN/IX SYS5 SPECIAL FILES(7)
NAME
special files - introduction to special files
DESCRIPTION
This section describes various special files that refer to
specific hardware peripherals. The names of the entries are
generally derived from names for the hardware, as opposed to
the names of the special files themselves. Characteristics
of both the hardware device and the corresponding device
driver are discussed where applicable.
Tape device filenames are in the following format:
/dev/{r}mt/(c#d)#[hml]{n}
where r indicates a raw device, c#d indicates the controller
number (normally 0, though can be changed by the system
administrator), # is the device number, hml indicates the
density (h (high) for 8000 bpi cartridge, m (medium) for
1600 bpi, and l (low density) for 800 bpi), and n indicates
no rewind on close. (e.g., /dev/mt/2mn) The blocking factor
for magtape files is 5120 bytes, and for cartridge tape
files is 512 bytes.
NOTES
For compatibility with earlier file systems, we also include
device files named
/dev/r[mc]t8
(rewind on file close) and
/dev/r[mc]t12
(no rewind on file close). The blocking factor for these
files is 10240 bytes.
While we support only raw magtape, there is a /dev/mt/0m
descriptor which has the same characteristics as
/dev/rmt/0m.
Printed 12/4/86 SPECIAL FILES-1