A device alias, or simply, alias, is a shorthand representation of a device path.
For example, the alias disk may represent the complete device path name:
/sbus@1f,0/esp@0,40000/sd@3,0:a
Systems usually have predefined device aliases for the most commonly used devices, so you rarely need to type a full device path name.
Table 1-2 describes the devalias command, which is used to examine, create, and change aliases.
Table 1-2 Examining and Creating Device Aliases
Command |
Description |
---|---|
devalias |
Display all current device aliases. |
devalias alias |
Display the device path name corresponding to alias. |
devalias aliasdevice-path |
Define an alias representing device-path. If an alias with the same name already exists, the new value supersedes the old. |
User-defined aliases are lost after a system reset or power cycle. If you want to create permanent aliases, you can either manually store the devalias command in a portion of non-volatile RAM (NVRAM) called nvramrc, or use the nvalias and nvunalias commands. (See Chapter 3, Setting Configuration Variables, for more details.)