major & minor number


 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Operating Systems Solaris major & minor number
# 1  
Old 07-21-2004
major & minor number

Hi

Can anyone tell me what is major number and minor number in the mknod command. Also what these numbers mean.

I have gone through the man pages but still I couldn't understand.

Regards
# 2  
Old 07-21-2004
There are several different drivers in a system. For example if your system has a disk drive and tape drive, there would be one driver for the disk and another driver for the tape drive. Each driver gets a number called the major number. The major number just tells the kernel which driver to use.

The minor number is passed to the driver. The driver could ignore it. Or the driver can interpret any way it wants. Usually there are sub fields in the minor number. In the case of a tape driver, one sub field would say which particular tape drive to use. Another sub field might say whether or not to automatically rewind the tape when the file is closed.
# 3  
Old 07-21-2004
You are great. I had that question in my head for months.
# 4  
Old 07-21-2004
Linux has a devices.txt file that lists the standard major and minor number. Check out http://www.lanana.org/docs/device-list/devices.txt . It won't be the same on all *nix but it may help clarify things. I know it helped me the first time I saw it.
Login or Register to Ask a Question

Previous Thread | Next Thread

9 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. Shell Programming and Scripting

Filtering my major and minor values

I want to remove all rows with a minor repeating count less than 30% compared to the major repeating count from my table. The values of a col(starting col 2) can assume is A,T,G,C and N. Each row has at least 2 values and at most 4 repeating values(out of ATGC). N is considered a missing value... (12 Replies)
Discussion started by: newbie83
12 Replies

2. Solaris

Major and Minor number of Virtual File System

Hi friends, Please let me know if there is any way to find out Major and Minor numbers of virtual file system like below: /devices 0K 0K 0K 0% /devices ctfs 0K 0K 0K 0% /system/contract proc 0K 0K ... (8 Replies)
Discussion started by: nitj
8 Replies

3. Shell Programming and Scripting

How to filter out major and minor?

Hi, I have line like this : proj_name/module/trunk/module_1_0 where the first "1" refers to major version and second "0" refers to minor version. any AWK or command like that so that I can filter out the major and minor ? like major= command | input line minor= command |... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: bhaskar_m
4 Replies

4. Programming

which head file for major and minor function?

#include <sys/types.h> #include <sys/stat.h> #include <sys/termios.h> #include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> #include <stddef.h> #include <string.h> #include <unistd.h> #include <signal.h> #include <sys/mkdev.h> int main(int argc, char *argv) { int i; struct stat buf; ... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: konvalo
4 Replies

5. AIX

Difference between Major and Minor in AIX

Difference between Major and Minor in AIX (5 Replies)
Discussion started by: AIXlearner
5 Replies

6. AIX

how do I change major-minor numbers of disk devices

Good evening ... does anyone of you know how to change major/minor numbers of disk devices ? I had to migrate from raid1 to raid5 and this messed up my ASM cluster - I know which devices should have which IDs to match the content - but I have no idea how to change it. Any help would be... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: zxmaus
2 Replies

7. Solaris

Help with Major and minor number

Hi Does anyone know what the major and minor numbers are in Solaris? (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: wisdom
2 Replies

8. Shell Programming and Scripting

sort major.minor.release_build_x

would like to order this input based on major.minor.release AND build number Label abc_def_0.0.3_build_999 2008/08/01 'Created by me.' Label abc_def_0.0.9_build_1000 2008/08/01 'Created by me.' Label abc_def_9.0.9_build_10001 2008/08/01 'Created by me.' Label abc_def_10.9.100_build_2... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: gurpal2000
4 Replies

9. Programming

Device Major/Minor numbers

To further my fledgling knowledge of C, I am re-writing some of the Unix command set. My current command is an ls-style command. All works well, except for device files. How do I get the major/minor numbers for the dev files? I see from the stat struct there are st_rdev and st_dev members. Do... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: zazzybob
1 Replies
Login or Register to Ask a Question