Device drivers, special files and the device database

Each physical mass storage device is supported by the following software.

device drivers

are programs that manage the signals between devices and the operating system. These include both target drivers and HBA drivers. You can use the drivers provided with the system or write your own. For the most current list of device drivers and supported hardware see ``Accessing the SCO Compatible Hardware Web Pages''. For instructions on writing your own device drivers, see Developing DDI kernel drivers.

device special files

are files that link devices to the appropriate device drivers. These files define devices to the kernel: how your system interacts with a device is determined by attributes of the device special file. These attributes are the name of the file (which serves as the name of the device), and the major and minor device numbers of the device special file.

DDB

The Device Database, /etc/device.tab, is a database in which the system keeps a list of attributes about each device on your system. The entry for each device includes a device alias (a name unique in the database that is mapped to the pathname of the device it represents) and values for a set of attributes. You can list the device attributes using the devattr(1M) command.

When a new storage device is added to the system, the device database is automatically updated--you do not need to modify anything by hand.