tech-net archive


Re: Specifying names for tap interfaces

On 5/07/2012 5:54 PM, Mouse wrote:
>> To reinforce the point about "<name><number>", you're changing the
>> device's name.  How many device names in NetBSD do not end with a
>> number?
> One thousand and fifteen, according to "ls /dev | egrep -v '[0-9]$' | wc'
> on a handy NetBSD box.  One thousand nine hundred and twenty-three,
> according to the same command on a different handy NetBSD box.

The entries in /dev are not devices. They are named files that
allow a process to interact with the kernel in a specific fashion.

For example, /dev/ipnat is not a device that is attached to the
system, it is just a name that allows for specific IO requests
to be directed to different code than handles /dev/ipf ones.
The same is true again for disk devices, /dev/wd0a does not
refer to a physical device: you will not find a wd0a attached
to pci0 or ide0 or anything else like that. Most network devices
aren't even present in that directory.

Proper devices, such as network cards and disk drives are all
named "<name><number>".


Home | Main Index | Thread Index | Old Index