NAME

intro − introduction to special files

DESCRIPTION

This section describes various special files that refer to specific hardware peripherals and UNIX system device drivers.  STREAMS [see intro(2)] software drivers, modules and the STREAMS-generic set of ioctl(2) system calls are also described. 

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 UNIX system device driver are discussed where applicable. 

Tape device file names are in the following format:

/dev/{r}mt/#{himl} {sf} {n}

where r indicates a raw device, the default is blocked, mt indicates a magnetic tape device, # is the device number, himl indicates the density (h (high) for 6250 bpi, i (intermediate) for 3200 bpi, m (medium) for 1600 bpi, l (low density) for 800 bpi), sf indicates speed selection (if applicable) where, s (slow) specifies 25 ips, and f (fast) specifies 100 ips, and n indicates no rewind on close.  (e.g., /dev/mt/2mn)

Disk device file names are in the following format:

/dev/rdsk/{r}#s#

where r indicates a raw interface to the disk, dsk refers to a disk device, the second r is used if the disk is on a second system, # is the device number, s# is the section (partition) number. 

BUGS

While the names of the entries generally refer to vendor hardware names, in certain cases these names are seemingly arbitrary for various historical reasons. 

CX/UX Administrator’s Reference