NAME
mknod
, mknodat
— make a special file
node
SYNOPSIS
#include
<sys/stat.h>
int
mknod
(const
char *path, mode_t
mode, dev_t
dev);
#include
<sys/stat.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
int
mknodat
(int
fd, const char
*path, mode_t mode,
dev_t dev);
DESCRIPTION
Themknod
()
function creates path with a file type and mode of
mode, as modified by
umask(2). Only
FIFO and device special files are supported by this implementation.
If mode is the bitwise OR of
S_IFIFO
and zero or more file permissions, and
dev is zero, then a FIFO is created. If
mode is the bitwise OR of
S_IFCHR
or S_IFBLK
and zero
or more file permissions, then a character or block device special
(respectively) is created with major and minor device numbers extracted from
dev.
The
mknodat
()
function is equivalent to mknod
() except that where
path specifies a relative path, the newly created
device special file is created relative to the directory associated with
file descriptor fd instead of the current working
directory.
If
mknodat
()
is passed the special value AT_FDCWD
(defined in
<fcntl.h>
) in the
fd parameter, the current working directory is used
and the behavior is identical to a call to
mknod
().
Creating a device special file with
mknod
() or
mknodat
() requires superuser privileges.
RETURN VALUES
Upon successful completion, the value 0 is returned; otherwise the value -1 is returned and the global variable errno is set to indicate the error.
ERRORS
mknod
() and
mknodat
() will fail and the file will be not created
if:
- [
EINVAL
] - mode is an invalid file type or dev is an invalid value for that file type.
- [
ENOTDIR
] - A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
- [
ENAMETOOLONG
] - A component of a pathname exceeded
NAME_MAX
characters, or an entire pathname (including the terminating NUL) exceededPATH_MAX
bytes. - [
ENOENT
] - A component of the path prefix does not exist.
- [
EACCES
] - Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix.
- [
ELOOP
] - Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
- [
EPERM
] - mode is a device special and the process's effective user ID is not superuser.
- [
EIO
] - An I/O error occurred while making the directory entry or allocating the inode.
- [
ENOSPC
] - The directory in which the entry for the new node is being placed cannot be extended because there is no space left on the file system containing the directory.
- [
ENOSPC
] - There are no free inodes on the file system on which the node is being created.
- [
EDQUOT
] - The directory in which the entry for the new node is being placed cannot be extended because the user's quota of disk blocks on the file system containing the directory has been exhausted.
- [
EDQUOT
] - The user's quota of inodes on the file system on which the node is being created has been exhausted.
- [
EROFS
] - The named file resides on a read-only file system.
- [
EEXIST
] - The named file exists.
- [
EFAULT
] - path points outside the process's allocated address space.
- [
EINVAL
] - The process is running within an alternate root directory, as created by chroot(2).
Additionally, mknodat
() will fail if:
- [
EBADF
] - The path argument specifies a relative path and the
fd argument is neither
AT_FDCWD
nor a valid file descriptor. - [
ENOTDIR
] - The path argument specifies a relative path and the fd argument is a valid file descriptor but it does not reference a directory.
- [
EACCES
] - The path argument specifies a relative path but search permission is denied for the directory which the fd file descriptor references.
SEE ALSO
STANDARDS
The mknod
() and
mknodat
() functions conform to IEEE
Std 1003.1-2008 (“POSIX.1”).
HISTORY
The mknod
() system call first appeared in
Version 4 AT&T UNIX, and
mknodat
() has been available since
OpenBSD 5.0.