Re: dynamically created /dev/null is a regular file

[Paul Goyette <paul%vps1.whooppee.com@localhost>]

On Thu, 25 Jun 2015, David Holland wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 04:43:17PM -0600, Brook Milligan wrote:
> > I have been installing some -current systems (cvs from
> > 201505311600Z to be exact) that dynamically construct /dev when
> > booting.  This seems to be the default behavior of rc when /dev is
> > effectively empty.  The problem is that /dev/null routinely ends up
> > being a regular file not a device file.  How and when are the
> > device files created and why is null created wrongly?  Could it
> > have been created somehow before the rest of the devices are
> > created dynamically?
> >
> > Is this related to kern/33023?
>
> It might be; but given that this mode gets used a fair amount, and
> also that the device should be getting created in the top of the
> unionfs, I would guess more likely not.
>
> I would do a quick look for something (e.g. in your shell startup
> files) that's clobbering /dev/null somehow. I had a horrible
> intermittent problem with this at one point until I discovered that
> less would do it for you if you linked .lesshst to /dev/null...

Is something perhaps using

	/dev/MAKEDEV > /dev/null

to invoke the MAKEDEV script?  If so, the shell redirect would create a 
"normal file" before MAKEDEV can create the device node.



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