12.5 mknod: Make block or character special files

mknod creates a FIFO, character special file, or block special file with the specified name. Synopsis:

mknod [option]… name type [major minor]

Unlike the phrase “special file type” above, the term special file has a technical meaning on Unix: something that can generate or receive data. Usually this corresponds to a physical piece of hardware, e.g., a printer or a flash drive. (These files are typically created at system-configuration time.) The mknod command is what creates files of this type. Such devices can be read either a character at a time or a “block” (many characters) at a time, hence we say there are block special files and character special files.

Due to shell aliases and built-in mknod functions, using an unadorned mknod interactively or in a script may get you different functionality than that described here. Invoke it via env (i.e., env mknod …) to avoid interference from the shell.

The arguments after name specify the type of file to make:

‘p’ ¶

for a FIFO

‘b’ ¶

for a block special file

‘c’

for a character special file

When making a block or character special file, the major and minor device numbers must be given after the file type. If a major or minor device number begins with ‘0x’ or ‘0X’, it is interpreted as hexadecimal; otherwise, if it begins with ‘0’, as octal; otherwise, as decimal.

The program accepts the following options. Also see Common options.

‘-m mode’ ¶

‘--mode=mode’

Set the mode of created files to mode, which is symbolic as in chmod and uses ‘a=rw’ as the point of departure. mode should specify only file permission bits. See File permissions.

‘-Z’ ¶

‘--context[=context]’

Without a specified context, adjust the SELinux security context according to the system default type for destination files, similarly to the restorecon command. The long form of this option with a specific context specified, will set the context for newly created files only. With a specified context, if both SELinux and SMACK are disabled, a warning is issued.

An exit status of zero indicates success, and a nonzero value indicates failure.