osf1 man page for clone

clone(7)						 Miscellaneous Information Manual						  clone(7)

NAME
       clone - Opens a major and minor device pair on a STREAMS driver

DESCRIPTION
       The  clone  driver  is  a  "pass  through"  device driver that allows other drivers to select unique minor device numbers on each open.	In
       effect, the driver passes an open operation through to the other driver.  This mechanism allows for multiple  instantiations  of  a  driver
       through a single file system node.

       The  name  parameter  specifies	the  name of the special device driver to be opened.  The clone driver calls the open routine of the other
       driver with flags that specify a clone open, and sets up the new instantiation using the returned major/minor pair.  The new  major  number
       is the minor number of the clonable entry, and the minor number has been dynamically selected.

       If the clone driver has an invalid minor number, or if the driver indicated is not a clonable driver, an error occurs.

       The master devices for pseudoterminals are examples of clonable drivers (see the pty reference page).

RELATED INFORMATION
       Functions: fstat(2), open(2).

       Interfaces: pty(7).  delim off

																	  clone(7)