Sponsored Content
Operating Systems Linux Fedora Is Kernel module is the same as a device driver? Post 302519242 by Perderabo on Tuesday 3rd of May 2011 11:58:17 AM
Old 05-03-2011
On RedHat at least we have /usr/include/linux/major.h which documents which major number goes with which driver. And remember that there are character drivers and block drivers and one of each can use the same major number. By convention, when this happens the two drivers should be closely related. For example:
Code:
#define MEM_MAJOR               1
#define RAMDISK_MAJOR           1

is an excerpt from that header file and we have
Code:
     $ ls -l /dev | awk '$5 == "1,"' | sort -k1.1,1.1  -k6
brw-r----- 1 root  disk     1,     0 Jan 17 10:38 ram0
brw-r----- 1 root  disk     1,     1 Jan 17 10:38 ram1
brw-r----- 1 root  disk     1,     2 Jan 17 10:38 ram2
brw-r----- 1 root  disk     1,     3 Jan 17 10:38 ram3
brw-r----- 1 root  disk     1,     4 Jan 17 10:38 ram4
brw-r----- 1 root  disk     1,     5 Jan 17 10:38 ram5
brw-r----- 1 root  disk     1,     6 Jan 17 10:38 ram6
brw-r----- 1 root  disk     1,     7 Jan 17 10:38 ram7
brw-r----- 1 root  disk     1,     8 Jan 17 10:38 ram8
brw-r----- 1 root  disk     1,     9 Jan 17 10:38 ram9
brw-r----- 1 root  disk     1,    10 Jan 17 10:38 ram10
brw-r----- 1 root  disk     1,    11 Jan 17 10:38 ram11
brw-r----- 1 root  disk     1,    12 Jan 17 10:38 ram12
brw-r----- 1 root  disk     1,    13 Jan 17 10:38 ram13
brw-r----- 1 root  disk     1,    14 Jan 17 10:38 ram14
brw-r----- 1 root  disk     1,    15 Jan 17 10:38 ram15
crw-r----- 1 root  kmem     1,     1 Jan 17 15:38 mem
crw-rw-rw- 1 root  root     1,     3 Jan 17 15:38 null
crw-r----- 1 root  kmem     1,     4 Jan 17 15:38 port
crw-rw-rw- 1 root  root     1,     5 Jan 17 15:38 zero
crw-rw-rw- 1 root  root     1,     7 Jan 17 15:38 full
crw-rw-rw- 1 root  root     1,     8 Jan 17 15:38 random
cr--r--r-- 1 root  root     1,     9 Jan 17 15:38 urandom
crw------- 1 root  root     1,    11 Jan 17 15:38 kmsg
crw------- 1 root  root     1,    12 Jan 17 15:38 oldmem
$

The major number just tells the kernel which driver to invoke. The driver is the part of the kernel that understands its own minor numbers. But there are conventions here too.

Not all driver writers completely follow conventions. Smilie
 

4 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

Kernel and Device Driver Programming

I am looking for a guide on how to program for either the Linux or FreeBSD (includes 4.4BSD, NetBSD or OpenBSD) kernel. I would prefer to learn how to write device drivers, but anything would help. If you know, please email me at *removed* or leave a post here Regards, Farhan (0 Replies)
Discussion started by: Farhan
0 Replies

2. Solaris

SUNWglmr -- rasctrl environment monitoring driver for i2c or SCSI device driver ?

I've been researching minimizeing Solaris 8 and found that on the web page http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/content/packagelist/s8u7PkgList/p2.html the package SUNWglmr is listed as "rasctrl environment monitoring driver for i2c, (Root) (32-bit)" while in the document "Solaris 8 minimize-updt1.pdf"... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: roygoodwin
1 Replies

3. Linux

Linux Device Driver: avoid mem copy from/to user/kernel space

I recently started working with Linux and wrote my first device driver for a hardware chip controlled by a host CPU running Linux 2.6.x kernel. 1. The user space process makes an IOCTL call with pointer to a user memory buffer. 2. The kernel device driver in the big switch-case of IOCTL,... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: agaurav
1 Replies

4. UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

Get pointer for existing device class (struct class) in Linux kernel module

Hi all! I am trying to register a device in an existing device class, but I am having trouble getting the pointer to an existing class. I can create a class in a module, get the pointer to it and then use it to register the device with: *cl = class_create(THIS_MODULE, className);... (0 Replies)
Discussion started by: hdaniel@ualg.pt
0 Replies
disks(1M)						  System Administration Commands						 disks(1M)

NAME
disks - creates /dev entries for hard disks attached to the system SYNOPSIS
/usr/sbin/disks [-C] [-r rootdir] DESCRIPTION
devfsadm(1M) is now the preferred command for /dev and should be used instead of disks. disks creates symbolic links in the /dev/dsk and /dev/rdsk directories pointing to the actual disk device special files under the /devices directory tree. It performs the following steps: 1. disks searches the kernel device tree to see what hard disks are attached to the system. It notes the /devices pathnames for the slices on the drive and determines the physical component of the corresponding /dev/dsk or /dev/rdsk name. 2. The /dev/dsk and /dev/rdsk directories are checked for disk entries - that is, symbolic links with names of the form cN[tN]dNsN, or cN[tN]dNpN, where N represents a decimal number. cN is the logical controller number, an arbitrary number assigned by this program to designate a particular disk controller. The first controller found on the first occasion this program is run on a system, is assigned number 0. tN is the bus-address number of a subsidiary controller attached to a peripheral bus such as SCSI or IPI (the target number for SCSI, and the facility number for IPI controllers). dN is the number of the disk attached to the controller. sN is the slice number on the disk. pN is the FDISK partition number used by fdisk(1M). (x86 Only) 3. If only some of the disk entries are found in /dev/dsk for a disk that has been found under the /devices directory tree, disks creates the missing symbolic links. If none of the entries for a particular disk are found in /dev/dsk, disks checks to see if any entries exist for other disks attached to the same controller, and if so, creates new entries using the same controller number as used for other disks on the same controller. If no other /dev/dsk entries are found for slices of disks belonging to the same physical con- troller as the current disk, disks assigns the lowest-unused controller number and creates entries for the disk slices using this newly-assigned controller number. disks is run automatically each time a reconfiguration-boot is performed or when add_drv(1M) is executed. When invoking disks(1M) manually, first run drvconfig(1M) to ensure /devices is consistent with the current device configuration. Notice to Driver Writers disks considers all devices with a node type of DDI_NT_BLOCK, DDI_NT_BLOCK_CHAN, DDI_NT_CD, DDI_NT_BLOCK_WWN or DDI_NT_CD_CHAN to be disk devices. disks(1M) requires the minor name of disk devices obey the following format conventions. The minor name for block interfaces consists of a single lowercase ASCII character, a through u. The minor name for character (raw) inter- faces consists of a single lowercase ASCII character, a through u, followed by ,raw. disks translates a through p to s0 through s15, while it translates q through u to p0 through p4. SPARC drivers should only use the first 8 slices: a through h, while x86 drivers can use a through u, with q through u corresponding to fdisk(1M) partitions. q represents the entire disk, while r, s, t, and u represent up to 4 additional partitions. To prevent disks from attempting to automatically generate links for a device, drivers must specify a private node type and refrain from using a node type: DDI_NT_BLOCK, DDI_NT_BLOCK_CHAN, DDI_NT_CD, or DDI_NT_CD_CHAN when calling ddi_create_minor_node(9F). OPTIONS
The following options are supported: -C Causes disks to remove any invalid links after adding any new entries to /dev/dsk and /dev/rdsk. Invalid links are links which refer to non-existent disk nodes that have been removed, powered off, or are otherwise inaccessible. -r rootdir Causes disks to presume that the /dev/dsk, /dev/rdsk and /devices directory trees are found under rootdir, not directly under /. ERRORS
If disks finds entries of a particular logical controller linked to different physical controllers, it prints an error message and exits without making any changes to the /dev directory, since it cannot determine which of the two alternative logical-to-physical mappings is correct. The links should be manually corrected or removed before another reconfiguration-boot is performed. EXAMPLES
Example 1: Creating Block and Character Minor Devices The following example demonstrates creating the block and character minor devices from within the xkdisk driver's attach(9E) function. #include <sys/dkio.h> /* * Create the minor number by combining the instance number * with the slice number. */ #define MINOR_NUM(i, s) ((i) << 4 | (s)) int xkdiskattach(dev_info_t *dip, ddi_attach_cmd_t cmd) { int instance, slice; char name[8]; /* other stuff in attach... */ instance = ddi_get_instance(dip); for (slice = 0; slice < V_NUMPAR; slice++) { /* * create block device interface */ sprintf(name, "%c", slice + 'a'); ddi_create_minor_node(dip, name, S_IFBLK, MINOR_NUM(instance, slice), DDI_NT_BLOCK_CHAN, 0); /* * create the raw (character) device interface */ sprintf(name,"%c,raw", slice + 'a'); ddi_create_minor_node(dip, name, S_IFCHR, MINOR_NUM(instance, slice), DDI_NT_BLOCK_CHAN, 0); } } Installing the xkdisk disk driver on a Sun Fire 4800, with the driver controlling a SCSI disk (target 3 attached to an isp(7D) SCSI HBA) and performing a reconfiguration-boot (causing disks to be run) creates the following special files in /devices. # ls -l /devices/ssm@0,0/pci@18,700000/pci@1/SUNW,isptwo@4/ brw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 16 Aug 29 00:02 xkdisk@3,0:a crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 16 Aug 29 00:02 xkdisk@3,0:a,raw brw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 17 Aug 29 00:02 xkdisk@3,0:b crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 17 Aug 29 00:02 xkdisk@3,0:b,raw brw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 18 Aug 29 00:02 xkdisk@3,0:c crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 18 Aug 29 00:02 xkdisk@3,0:c,raw brw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 19 Aug 29 00:02 xkdisk@3,0:d crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 19 Aug 29 00:02 xkdisk@3,0:d,raw brw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 20 Aug 29 00:02 xkdisk@3,0:e crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 20 Aug 29 00:02 xkdisk@3,0:e,raw brw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 21 Aug 29 00:02 xkdisk@3,0:f crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 21 Aug 29 00:02 xkdisk@3,0:f,raw brw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 22 Aug 29 00:02 xkdisk@3,0:g crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 22 Aug 29 00:02 xkdisk@3,0:g,raw brw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 23 Aug 29 00:02 xkdisk@3,0:h crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 23 Aug 29 00:02 xkdisk@3,0:h,raw /dev/dsk will contain the disk entries to the block device nodes in /devices # ls -l /dev/dsk /dev/dsk/c0t3d0s0 -> ../../devices/[...]/xkdisk@3,0:a /dev/dsk/c0t3d0s1 -> ../../devices/[...]/xkdisk@3,0:b /dev/dsk/c0t3d0s2 -> ../../devices/[...]/xkdisk@3,0:c /dev/dsk/c0t3d0s3 -> ../../devices/[...]/xkdisk@3,0:d /dev/dsk/c0t3d0s4 -> ../../devices/[...]/xkdisk@3,0:e /dev/dsk/c0t3d0s5 -> ../../devices/[...]/xkdisk@3,0:f /dev/dsk/c0t3d0s6 -> ../../devices/[...]/xkdisk@3,0:g /dev/dsk/c0t3d0s7 -> ../../devices/[...]/xkdisk@3,0:h and /dev/rdsk will contain the disk entries for the character device nodes in /devices # ls -l /dev/rdsk /dev/rdsk/c0t3d0s0 -> ../../devices/[...]/xkdisk@3,0:a,raw /dev/rdsk/c0t3d0s1 -> ../../devices/[...]/xkdisk@3,0:b,raw /dev/rdsk/c0t3d0s2 -> ../../devices/[...]/xkdisk@3,0:c,raw /dev/rdsk/c0t3d0s3 -> ../../devices/[...]/xkdisk@3,0:d,raw /dev/rdsk/c0t3d0s4 -> ../../devices/[...]/xkdisk@3,0:e,raw /dev/rdsk/c0t3d0s5 -> ../../devices/[...]/xkdisk@3,0:f,raw /dev/rdsk/c0t3d0s6 -> ../../devices/[...]/xkdisk@3,0:g,raw /dev/rdsk/c0t3d0s7 -> ../../devices/[...]/xkdisk@3,0:h,raw FILES
/dev/dsk/* Disk entries (block device interface) /dev/rdsk/* Disk entries (character device interface) /devices/* Device special files (minor device nodes) ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes: +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ | ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |Availability |SUNWcsu | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ SEE ALSO
add_drv(1M), devfsadm(1M), fdisk(1M), attributes(5), isp(7D), devfs(7FS), dkio(7I), attach(9E), ddi_create_minor_node(9F) Writing Device Drivers BUGS
disks silently ignores malformed minor device names. SunOS 5.10 7 Nov 2002 disks(1M)
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 08:59 AM.
Unix & Linux Forums Content Copyright 1993-2022. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy