Minor Device Nodes

A minor device node contains the information exported by the device that the system uses to create a special file for the device under /devices in the file system.

In the call to ddi_create_minor_node(9F), the minor name is the character string that is the last part of the base name of the special file to be created for this minor device number; for example, "b,raw" in "fd@1,f7200000:b,raw". S_IFCHR means create a character special file. Finally, the node type is one of the following system macros, or any string constant that does not conflict with the values of these macros (see ddi_create_minor_node(9F) for more information).

The node types DDI_NT_BLOCK, DDI_NT_BLOCK_CHAN, DDI_NT_CD, and DDI_NT_CD_CHAN cause disks(1M) to identify the device instance as a disk and to create a symbolic link in the /dev/dsk or /dev/rdsk directory pointing to the device node in the /devices directory tree.

The node type DDI_NT_TAPE causes tapes(1M) to identify the device instance as a tape and to create a symbolic link from the /dev/rmt directory to the device node in the /devices directory tree.

The node type DDI_NT_SERIAL causes ports(1M) to identify the device instance as a serial port and to create symbolic links from the /dev/term and /dev/cua directories to the device node in the /devices directory tree and to add a new entry to /etc/inittab.

Vendor-supplied strings should include an identifying value to make them unique, such as their name or stock symbol (if appropriate). The string (along with the other node types not consumed by disks(1M), tapes(1M), or ports(1M)) can be used in conjunction with devlinks(1M) and devlink.tab(4) to create logical names in /dev.