Installation guide

For static drivers, use the MAKEDEV command or the mknod command to
create device special files. The kmknod command creates device special files
for third-party kernel layered products. Refer to the MAKEDEV
(8), mknod(8),
and kmknod
(8) reference pages for more information.
For loadable drivers, the sysconfig command creates the device special
files by using the information specified in the driver’s stanza entry in the
/etc/sysconfigtab database file.
7.1.7 Administering Log Files
System log files, such as those found in /var/adm/syslog.dated, are
often created and updated automatically. On a well managed system where
everything is running smoothly, log files will not grow excessively and will
provide important data for administering the system. You will therefore
want to keep a certain number of recent log files on hand and ensure that
others are archived or recorded in system backups.
On systems with little available disk space, you may want to actively
manage the log files. For example the /var/adm/syslog.dated directory
contains preserved copies of log files that are used for debugging. Normally,
these files do not contain many entries. However, under certain error
conditions, a kernel subsystem might log an excessive amount of entries to
a file and cause a problem. You should either physically check the logs on a
regular basis or use the cron utility to set up a regular job to clear the log
files.
The default root crontab file in the /var/spool/cron/crontabs directory
contains the following sample line for clearing up the
/var/adm/syslog.dated directory:
404***find /var/adm/syslog.dated -depth -type d -ctime +5 -exec rm -rf {} ;
If enabled, this cron job will be activated every morning at 4:40 a.m. and
will delete any log file in /var/adm/syslog.dated that has not been
updated for the last five days. You can edit the crontab file to uncomment
and modify this line or add a similar line by using the following command:
#
crontab -e
For more information, see the crontab(8) reference page.
Other log files that you may want to administer in this way are:
• The default printer log file, /usr/adm/lperr. Note that you can
specify alternate locations for these log files when configuring printers.
• The binary error log file, /usr/adm/binary.errlog.
7–14 Administering the UNIX File System