Sassign(4)                                                Sassign(4)


       NAME
             Sassign - configurable device variables

       SYNOPSIS
             Sassign

       DESCRIPTION
             One of the Installable Driver/Tunable Parameters kernel
             configuration files, the Sassign file gives system
             administrators the ability to assign specific actual devices
             to logical device names used by the kernel.  One example is
             rootdev, which is the device that contains the root file
             system.

             When the Sassign component of a module's Driver Software
             Package (DSP) is installed, idinstall(1M) stores the module's
             Sassign file information in /etc/conf/sassign.d/module-name,
             where the file module-name is the name of the module being
             installed.  Package scripts should never access
             /etc/conf/sassign.d files directly; only the idinstall command
             should be used.

             If the system administrator wants to assign a different actual
             device to perform a function, the administrator remaps the
             logical device name for that function to specify another
             configured device in the Sassign file.  Note that the kernel
             must be rebuilt and rebooted for the new assignment to take
             affect.

             Each logical device name in the Sassign file is specified on a
             separate line of the form:
                   device-variable-prefix device-module-name minor

             All fields are positional and must be separated by white
             space.  Blank lines and lines beginning with ``#'' or ``*''
             are considered comments and are ignored.

             The Sassign file fields are:

             device-variable-prefix
                   Specifies a prefix identifier to be used to construct
                   the logical name by which the device is known.  When the
                   kernel is rebuilt, the suffix dev will be appended to
                   this identifier to form the full logical device name.




                           Copyright 1994 Novell, Inc.               Page 1

      Sassign(4)                                                Sassign(4)


                  The logical device name will be used to create a global
                  variable of type dev_t during the kernel rebuild
                  process.  Any module that needs to reference the logical
                  device should include an extern dev_t declaration for
                  the logical device name variable.

            device-module-name
                  Identifies the name of actual device driver module that
                  is to perform the function associated with this logical
                  device name.  The name must match the name defined for
                  the module in the module-name field of its Master(4)
                  file.  The name must be for a block device except when
                  used with the console device variable, which requires a
                  console-capable character device.

            minor Specifies the minor device number which is to be
                  assigned to this logical device name.  The major number
                  for the logical device is the major number defined for
                  the module identified in the device-module-name field.

      NOTES
            To create a variable which is intended to always refer to the
            same device, define it as a variable in the device's Space.c
            file, using the PRFX_BMAJOR_X symbol from
            /etc/conf/cf.d/config.h, instead of using an Sassign file.

      REFERENCES
            idbuild(1M), Master(4), Space.c(4)




















                          Copyright 1994 Novell, Inc.               Page 2