/dev and the /devices Namespace

The devfs file system described in the devfs(7FS) man page is used by the Solaris system to manage /devices. Each element in this namespace represents the physical path to a hardware device, pseudo-device, or nexus device. The namespace is a reflection of the device tree. As such, the file system is populated by a hierarchy of directories and device special files.

Devices are grouped according to the relative /dev hierarchy. For example, all of the devices under /dev in the global zone are grouped as global zone devices. For a non-global zone, the devices are grouped in a /dev directory under the zone's root path. Each group is a mounted /dev file system instance that is mounted under the /dev directory. Thus, the global zone devices are mounted under /dev, while the devices for a non-global zone named my-zone are mounted under /my-zone_rootpath/dev.

The /dev file hierarchy is managed by the dev file system described in the dev(7FS) man page.

Subsystems that rely on /devices path names are not able to run in non-global zones. The subsystems must be updated to use /dev path names.