DEVFS (8) | System administration commands and daemons | Unix Manual Pages

DEVFS (8) | System administration commands and daemons | Unix Manual Pages | :man▋

The keyword argument determines the context for the rest of the arguments. For example, most of the commands related to the rule subsystem must be preceded by the rule keyword. The following flags are common to all keywords:

-m mount-point Operate on mount-point, which is expected to be a devfs(5) mount. If this option is not specified, devfs operates on /dev.

Rule Subsystem

The devfs(5) rule subsystem provides a way for the administrator of a system to control the attributes of DEVFS nodes. Each DEVFS mount-point has a "ruleset", or a list of rules, associated with it. When a device driver creates a new node, all the rules in the ruleset associated with each mount-point are applied (see below) before the node becomes visible to the userland. This permits the administrator to change the properties, including the visibility, of certain nodes. For example, one might want to hide all disk nodes in a jail 2 ’s /dev.

Rule Manipulation

Rule manipulation commands follow the rule keyword. The following flags are common to all of the rule manipulation commands:

-s ruleset

Operate on the ruleset with the number ruleset. If this is not specified, the commands operate on the ruleset currently associated with the specified mount-point.

The following commands are recognized:

rule add[rulenumrulespec]	Add the rule described by rulespec (defined below) to the ruleset. The rule has the number rulenum if it is explicitly specified; otherwise, the rule number is automatically determined by the kernel.
rule apply rulenum \| rulespec	Apply rule number rulenum or the rule described by rulespec to the mount-point. Rules that are "applied" have their conditions checked against all nodes in the mount-point and the actions taken if they match.
rule applyset	Apply all the rules in the ruleset to the mount-point (see above for the definition of "apply").
rule del rulenum	Delete rule number rulenum from the ruleset.
rule delset	Delete all rules from the ruleset.
rule show [rulenum]	Display the rule number rulenum, or all the rules in the ruleset. The output lines (one line per rule) are expected to be valid rulespec s.
rule showsets	Report the numbers of existing rulesets.
ruleset ruleset	Set ruleset number ruleset as the current ruleset for the mount-point.

Rule Specification

Rules have two parts: the conditions and the actions. The conditions determine which DEVFS nodes the rule matches and the actions determine what should be done when a rule matches a node. For example, a rule can be written that sets the GID to "operator" for all devices of type tape. If the first token of a rule specification is a single dash (''), rules are read from the standard input and the rest of the specification is ignored.

The following conditions are recognized. Conditions are ANDed together when matching a device; if OR is desired, multiple rules can be written.

path pattern	Matches any node with a path that matches pattern, which is interpreted as a glob 3 -style pattern.
type devtype	Matches any node that is of type devtype. Valid types are disk, mem, tape and tty.

The following actions are recognized. Although there is no explicit delimiter between conditions and actions, they may not be intermixed.

group gid	Set the GID of the node to gid, which may be a group name (looked up in `/etc/group`) or number.
hide	Hide the node. Nodes may later be revived manually with mknod(8) or with the unhide action.
include ruleset	Apply all the rules in ruleset number ruleset to the node. This does not necessarily result in any changes to the node (e.g., if none of the rules in the included ruleset match).
mode filemode	Set the file mode to filemode, which is interpreted as in chmod(1).
user uid	Set the UID to uid, which may be a user name (looked up in `/etc/passwd`) or number.
unhide	Unhide the node.

IMPLEMENTATION NOTES

Rulesets are created by the kernel at the first reference and destroyed when the last reference disappears. E.g., a ruleset is created when a rule is added to it or when it is set as the current ruleset for a mount-point, and a ruleset is destroyed when the last rule in it is deleted and no other references to it exist (i.e., it is not included by any rules and it is not the current ruleset for any mount-point).

Ruleset number 0 is the default ruleset for all new mount-points. It is always empty, cannot be modified or deleted, and does not show up in the output of showsets.

Rules and rulesets are unique to the entire system, not a particular mount-point. I.e., a showsets will return the same information regardless of the mount-point specified with -m . The mount-point is only relevant when changing what its current ruleset is or when using one of the apply commands.

FILES

`/etc/defaults/devfs.rules` `/etc/devfs.rules`

EXAMPLES

When the system boots, the only ruleset that exists is ruleset number 0; since the latter may not be modified, we have to create another ruleset before adding rules. Note that since most of the following examples do not specify -m , the operations are performed on /dev (this only matters for things that might change the properties of nodes).

"devfs ruleset 10"

Specify that ruleset 10 should be the current ruleset for /dev (if it does not already exist, it is created).

"devfs rule add path speaker mode 666"

Add a rule that causes all nodes that have a path that matches "speaker" (this is only /dev/speaker) to have the file mode 666 (read and write for all). Note that if any such nodes already exist, their mode will not be changed unless this rule (or ruleset) is explicitly applied (see below). The mode will be changed if the node is created after the rule is added (e.g., the atspeaker module is loaded after the above rule is added).

"devfs rule applyset"

Apply all the rules in the current ruleset to all the existing nodes. E.g., if the above rule was added after /dev/speaker was created, this command will cause its file mode to be changed to 666 as prescribed by the rule.

devfs rule add path "snp*" mode 660 group snoopers

(Quoting the argument to path is often necessary to disable the shell’s globbing features.) For all devices with a path that matches "snp*", set the file mode to 660 and the GID to "snoopers". This permits users in the "snoopers" group to use the snp(4) devices.

"devfs rule -s 20 add major 53 group games"

Add a rule to ruleset number 20. Since this ruleset is not the current ruleset for any mount-points, this rule is never applied automatically (unless ruleset 20 becomes a current ruleset for some mount-point at a later time). However, it can be applied explicitly, as such:

"devfs -m /my/jail/dev rule -s 20 applyset"

This will apply all rules in ruleset number 20 to the DEVFS mount on /my/jail/dev. It does not matter that ruleset 20 is not the current ruleset for that mount-point; the rules are still applied.

"devfs rule apply hide"

Since this rule has no conditions, the action (hide) will be applied to all nodes. Since hiding all nodes is not very useful, we can undo it:

"devfs rule apply unhide"

which applies unhide to all the nodes, causing them to reappear.

"devfs rule -s 10 add - < my_rules"

Add all the rules from the file my_rules to ruleset 10.

"devfs rule -s 20 show | devfs rule -s 10 add -"

Since show outputs valid rules, this feature can be used to copy rulesets. The above copies all the rules from ruleset 20 into ruleset 10. The rule numbers are preserved, but ruleset 10 may already have rules with non-conflicting numbers (these will be preserved).

AUTHORS

Created by Blin Media, 2008-2013

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