March 29, 2024, 01:29:42 PM

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Author Topic: What is mknod file present in /etc folder in AIX Linux server used for?  (Read 5062 times)

Offline DBTuner

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Hi Guys,
          On my AIX server , I have this file "mknod" present in the /etc/ directory. When i try opening it , I dont find

any ascii characters. It shows some encryption/binary format which is not readable. Is it any executable ? what is the

purpose of having this file in etc folder? what if this file is not present ? Request your inputs for the same. Thanks in

advance. :)

Offline dalek

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I don't use the command and I don't have that file either but I'll give this a try.  mknod creates the device nodes for basically every device on the computer.  I would think the file in /etc would contain some sort of rules or some other info needed by the command. 

I would add, if you don't know about mknod, I would leave that file be.  It could be that if you mess up or change the file, even by accident, your system may not boot or may have other problems to pop up. 

You may also want to just go to a console and type in "man mknod" and give that a try.  It's sort of geeky but sometimes it gets you started. 

Hope that helps.

:)  :)

Offline DBTuner

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Hi Dalek,
             Thanks for the reply:). Actually I did find the details using man command but that's a shell command. I wanted to know how it is associated (if so) with the mknod file present in the etc folder. May be it could be possible as you indicated that it might contain some rules/ some customisation to meet the requirements. Actually I have to run some migration shell scripts for which this is a pre-requisite that this file should be present in this directory before i start off.

Best Regards,
DBTuner

Offline dalek

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I actually don't know since I have never used the command.  I do know there are lots of commands that have a config file somewhere, usually /etc, that tells them how to work and other things that are needed.  It may even be that some other program that uses mknod needs that file.  A lot of this depends on the distro you are using or asking about.  My distro doesn't have that file so I don't know what to look for here. 

What distro are you using?  That may help someone who uses that distro to know they can answer your questions better than me. 

:)  :)