mknod makes a directory entry for a special file.

The following options are supported:

b

Create a block-type special file.

c

Create a character-type special file.

p

Create a FIFO (named pipe).

The following operands are supported:

major

The major device number.

minor

The minor device number; can be either decimal or octal. The assignment of major device numbers is specific to each system. You must be the super-user to use this form of the command.

name

A special file to be created.

See largefile(5) for the description of the behavior of mknod when encountering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte ( 2³¹ bytes).

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

ftp(1), in.ftpd(1M), mknod(2), symlink(2), attributes(5), largefile(5)

If mknod(2) is used to create a device, the major and minor device numbers are always interpreted by the kernel running on that machine.

With the advent of physical device naming, it would be preferable to create a symbolic link to the physical name of the device (in the /devices subtree) rather than using mknod.