Creating Minor Device Nodes

An important part of the attach process is the creation of minor nodes for the device instance. A minor node contains the information exported by the device and the DDI framework. The system uses this information to create a special file for the minor node under /devices.

Minor nodes are created when the driver calls ddi_create_minor_node(9F). The driver supplies a minor number, a minor name, a minor node type, and whether the minor node represents a block or character device.

Drivers can create any number of minor nodes for a device. The Solaris DDI/DKI expects certain classes of devices to have minor nodes created in a particular format. For example, disk drivers are expected to create 16 minor nodes for each physical disk instance attached. Eight minor nodes are created, representing the a - h block device interfaces, with an additional eight minor nodes for the a,raw - h,raw character device interfaces.

The minor number passed to ddi_create_minor_node(9F) is defined wholly by the driver. The minor number is usually an encoding of the instance number of the device with a minor node identifier. In the preceding example, the driver creates minor numbers for each of the minor nodes by shifting the instance number of the device left by three bits and using the OR of that result with the minor node index. The values of the minor node index range from 0 to 7. Note that minor nodes a and a,raw share the same minor number. These minor nodes are distinguished by the spec_type argument passed to ddi_create_minor_node().

The minor node type passed to ddi_create_minor_node(9F) classifies the type of device, such as disks, tapes, network interfaces, frame buffers, and so forth.

The following table lists the types of possible nodes that might be created.

The node types DDI_NT_BLOCK, DDI_NT_BLOCK_CHAN, DDI_NT_CD, and DDI_NT_CD_CHAN cause devfsadm(1M) to identify the device instance as a disk and to create names in the /dev/dsk or /dev/rdsk directory.

The node type DDI_NT_TAPE causes devfsadm(1M) to identify the device instance as a tape and to create names in the /dev/rmt directory.

The node types DDI_NT_SERIAL and DDI_NT_SERIAL_DO cause devfsadm(1M) to perform these actions:

• Identify the device instance as a serial port

• Create names in the /dev/term directory

• Add entries to the /etc/inittab file

Vendor-supplied strings should include an identifying value such as a name or stock symbol to make the strings unique. The string can be used in conjunction with devfsadm(1M) and the devlinks.tab file (see the devlinks(1M) man page) to create logical names in /dev.