From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Oct 7 07:15:48 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C36CE16A4C0 for ; Tue, 7 Oct 2003 07:15:48 -0700 (PDT) Received: from be-well.ilk.org (lowellg.ne.client2.attbi.com [66.30.200.37]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1F08743F75 for ; Tue, 7 Oct 2003 07:15:48 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from freebsd-questions-local@be-well.ilk.org) Received: by be-well.ilk.org (Postfix, from userid 1147) id 895D13AB7; Tue, 7 Oct 2003 10:15:47 -0400 (EDT) Sender: lowell@be-well.ilk.org To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org References: <3F80C87F.6080201@ecsd.com> From: Lowell Gilbert Date: 07 Oct 2003 10:15:47 -0400 In-Reply-To: <3F80C87F.6080201@ecsd.com> Message-ID: <44pth9kub0.fsf@be-well.ilk.org> Lines: 35 User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.3 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Subject: Re: scant description for devfs - unable to create /dev/ad3* or use disklabel X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2003 14:15:48 -0000 ecsd writes: > The transition to using devfs versus MAKEDEV is not very well documented, > and I find no way to create /dev/ad3-anything although I have a /dev/ad3 > and have used "disklabel -w -r ad3 auto" to initialize it. > > I wish there were an example section for devfs(8) that showed how to use > devfs to do what MAKEDEV used to do. I have seen the remark "devfs > will create the node for you", but "disklabel -e /dev/ad3d" and > "disklabel -e /dev/ad3s1d" > fail "no such device" whereas "disklabel -e /dev/ad3" reports > "operation not supported > by device". Perhaps I could use mknod, but I don't know what minor > numbers to > use and doing "file ad*" doesn't show a clear pattern of assignment. > > I wish MAKEDEV were not removed, as it is an easy, well-known interface > to creating device nodes - as opposed to the opaque devfs, inasmuch > as, if I had > MAKEDEV I would be done by now whereas there is nothing in the FAQs, > nothing in the search, and nothing in the release notes that describes > the devfs > replacement for this common operation. Now I am left guessing whether I'll > have to reboot the system to see the partitions on /dev/ad3. MAKEDEV would > just work with no fuss. Those are just the breaks of using a "technology preview" release. The documentation is coming along, and should be pretty solid by the time 5.x is ready to be recommended for production use. I don't think you understand how device nodes work; they're not magic, and don't add devices into the kernel. If devfs doesn't create them automatically, building them wouldn't do any good, because the device numbers wouldn't be understood by the kernel.