MKNOD(2) Linux Programmers Manual MKNOD(2)
NAME
mknod - create a special or ordinary file
SYNOPSIS
#include
#include
#include
#include
int mknod(const char *pathname, mode_t mode, dev_t dev);
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
mknod(): _BSD_SOURCE || _SVID_SOURCE || _XOPEN_SOURCE >= 500
DESCRIPTION
The system call mknod() creates a file system node (file, device spe
cial file or named pipe) named pathname, with attributes specified by
mode and dev.
The mode argument specifies both the permissions to use and the type of
node to be created. It should be a combination (using bitwise OR) of
one of the file types listed below and the permissions for the new
node.
The permissions are modified by the processs umask in the usual way:
the permissions of the created node are (mode & ~umask).
The file type must be one of S_IFREG, S_IFCHR, S_IFBLK, S_IFIFO or
S_IFSOCK to specify a regular file (which will be created empty), char
acter special file, block special file, FIFO (named pipe), or Unix
domain socket, respectively. (Zero file type is equivalent to type
S_IFREG.)
If the file type is S_IFCHR or S_IFBLK then dev specifies the major and
minor numbers of the newly created device special file; otherwise it is
ignored.
If pathname already exists, or is a symbolic link, this call fails with
an EEXIST error.
The newly created node will be owned by the effective user ID of the
process. If the directory containing the node has the set-group-ID bit
set, or if the file system is mounted with BSD group semantics, the new
node will inherit the group ownership from its parent directory; other
wise it will be owned by the effective group ID of the process.
RETURN VALUE
mknod() returns zero on success, or -1 if an error occurred (in which
case, errno is set appropriately).
ERRORS
EACCES The parent directory does not allow write permission to the pro
cess, or one of the directories in the path prefix of pathname
did not allow search permission. (See also path_resolution(7).)
EEXIST pathname already exists. This includes the case where pathname
is a symbolic link, dangling or not.
EFAULT pathname points outside your accessible address space.
EINVAL mode requested creation of something other than a regular file,
device special file, FIFO or socket.
ELOOP Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving pathname.
ENAMETOOLONG
pathname was too long.
ENOENT A directory component in pathname does not exist or is a dan
gling symbolic link.
ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory was available.
ENOSPC The device containing pathname has no room for the new node.
ENOTDIR
A component used as a directory in pathname is not, in fact, a
directory.
EPERM mode requested creation of something other than a regular file,
FIFO (named pipe), or Unix domain socket, and the caller is not
privileged (Linux: does not have the CAP_MKNOD capability); also
returned if the file system containing pathname does not support
the type of node requested.
EROFS pathname refers to a file on a read-only file system.
CONFORMING TO
SVr4, 4.4BSD, POSIX.1-2001 (but see below).
NOTES
POSIX.1-2001 says: "The only portable use of mknod() is to create a
FIFO-special file. If mode is not S_IFIFO or dev is not 0, the behav
ior of mknod() is unspecified." However, nowadays one should never use
mknod() for this purpose; one should use mkfifo(3), a function espe
cially defined for this purpose.
Under Linux, this call cannot be used to create directories. One
should make directories with mkdir(2).
There are many infelicities in the protocol underlying NFS. Some of
these affect mknod().
SEE ALSO
chmod(2), chown(2), fcntl(2), mkdir(2), mknodat(2), mount(2),
socket(2), stat(2), umask(2), unlink(2), mkfifo(3), path_resolution(7)
COLOPHON
This page is part of release 3.05 of the Linux man-pages project. A
description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can
be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.
Linux 2007-07-26 MKNOD(2)
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