#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <unistd.h>
int mknod(const char * pathname , mode_t mode , dev_t dev );
DESCRIPTION
The system call mknod creates a filesystem node (file, device special 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 process's 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 normal file (which will be created empty), character
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 uid of the
process. If the directory containing the node has the set group id
bit set, or if the filesystem is mounted with BSD group semantics, the
new node will inherit the group ownership from its parent directory;
otherwise it will be owned by the effective gid of the process.
RETURN VALUE
mknod returns zero on success, or -1 if an error occurred (in which case, errno is set appropriately).
ERRORS
EPERM
mode requested creation of something other than a regular file,
FIFO (named pipe), or Unix domain socket, and the caller
is not the superuser; also returned if the filesystem
containing pathname does not support the type of node requested.
EINVAL
mode requested creation of something other than a normal file, device
special file, FIFO or socket.
EEXIST
pathname already exists.
EFAULT
pathname " points outside your accessible address space."
EACCES
The parent directory does not allow write permission to the process,
or one of the directories in pathname did not allow search (execute) permission.
ENAMETOOLONG
pathname " was too long."
ENOENT
A directory component in pathname does not exist or is a dangling symbolic link.
ENOTDIR
A component used as a directory in pathname is not, in fact, a directory.
ENOMEM
Insufficient kernel memory was available.
EROFS
pathname refers to a file on a read-only filesystem.
ELOOP
Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving pathname .
ENOSPC
The device containing pathname has no room for the new node.
CONFORMING TO
SVr4 (but the call requires privilege and is thus not in POSIX),
4.4BSD. The Linux version differs from the SVr4 version in that it
does not require root permission to create pipes, also in that no
EMULTIHOP, ENOLINK, or EINTR error is documented.
NOTES
POSIX 1003.1-2001 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 behavior of mknod () is unspecified."
Under Linux, this call cannot be used to create directories.
One should make directories with mkdir , and FIFOs with mkfifo .
There are many infelicities in the protocol underlying NFS. Some
of these affect mknod .