HP-UX 11i v3 Mass Storage Device Naming

For example if the system discovers 2 auto-changer devices and assigns them instance numbers 0 and
1 respectively, it will automatically create the following device files: /dev/rchgr/autoch0 and
/dev/rchgr/autoch1.
Array controller and other device file naming convention
Any device which is not claimed by a class driver is bound by default to the pass-through driver: esctl.
This is the case for array controller devices. The device special name format for these devices is:
• /dev/pt/pt<instance>
For example if the system discovers 3 array controllers and assigned them instance numbers: 0, 10
and 12 respectively, it will automatically create the following device special files for these devices:
/dev/pt/pt0, /dev/pt/pt10 and /dev/pt/pt12.
Creating device special files manually
The user may need in some situations, to manually create device special files. Examples of such
situations include: restoring device files deleted accidentally, creating a pass-through device file for a
device, or creating a custom device special file corresponding to certain device options.
The insf, mksf and mknod commands can be used to manually create DSFs:
• insf: can be invoked to re-create device special files automatically created by the system for
devices of a particular class, devices bound to a specific driver, or for all devices on the
system. If new devices are present on the system, the system allocates new minor numbers for
these devices and stores the binding between the minor numbers, device options and the
device in a registry.
• mksf: can be used to create: (1) all device special files created by default by the system for a
particular device; (2) a custom device special file corresponding to certain device options.
The user can override the standard naming convention by specifying his own device special
file name. If a minor number was not already allocated for the device options specified, the
system allocates a new minor number, and stores the binding between it and the device
options in a registry.
• mknod : can be used to create a device special file by explicitly specifying the major number,
the minor number, and the device special file name. However, unlike the legacy minor
numbers which can be constructed from the hardware addressing components, the new
persistent minor numbers are opaque values assigned by the system which cannot be
constructed by the user. Using mknod to create a persistent DSF requires the use of a minor
number already assigned to the device by the system.
Note: See the mknod(1M), mkfs(1M) and insf(1M) man pages for more details.
Using insf to Create device files created by default by the system
The following examples show how you can use the insf command to create or re-install device files
that the system creates by default.
• To create default device files for all new devices on the system. New devices are those for,
which no device file has been created before.
# insf
• To create default device files for all disk devices:
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