Tribblix: manual page: ports.8

PORTS(8) Maintenance Commands and Procedures PORTS(8)

NAME

ports - creates /dev entries and inittab entries for serial lines

SYNOPSIS

/usr/sbin/ports [-r rootdir]

DESCRIPTION

devfsadm(8) is now the preferred command for /dev and /devices and
should be used instead of ports.

The ports command creates symbolic links in the /dev/term and
/dev/cua directories to the serial-port character device files in
/devices and adds new entries in /etc/inittab for non-system ports
found. System-board ports are given single lower-case letters for
names (such as a and b) while other ports are named numerically.

ports searches the kernel device tree to find the serial devices
attached to the system. It also checks /dev/term and /dev/cua to see
what symbolic links to serial devices already exist. ports then
performs the following:

1. Assigns new numbers (or letters for system-board ports) to
ports that are attached to the system but do not have
/dev/term and /dev/cua entries. The numbers or letters
assigned are the lowest-unused numbers or letters.

2. Removes dangling links: links from /dev/term and /dev/cua
pointing to no-longer-existing ports.

3. Creates new /dev/term and /dev/cua links for new serial
devices.

4. Invokes sacadm(8) to make new port monitor entries for the
new devices. This is not done automatically for on-board
ports; on workstations these ports are often not used for
dial-in sessions, so a port-monitor for one of these ports
must be created explicitly.

If the configuration has not changed, ports exits without doing
anything.

Notice to Driver Writers

ports considers devices with a node type of DDI_NT_SERIAL,
DDI_NT_SERIAL_MB, DDI_NT_SERIAL_DO, or DDI_NT_SERIAL_MB_DO to be
serial port devices. Devices with one of these node types must create
minor device names that obey the following conventions when calling
ddi_create_minor_node(9F).

o The minor name for non-system port devices (DDI_NT_SERIAL)
consists of an ASCII numeric string, where the first port
on the device is named 0, the second named 1, the third
named 2, up to the number of ports provided by the device.

o The minor name for non-system dialout devices
(DDI_NT_SERIAL_DO) is the ASCII numeric port name,
concatenated with ,cu. For example, the minor name for the
first dialout port on the serial board is 0,cu.

o The minor name for system-board port devices
(DDI_NT_SERIAL_MB) consists of a string containing a
single ASCII lowercase character, where the first port on
the device is named a, the second is named b, the third is
named c, for all ports on the device (or up through port
z).

o The minor name for system-board dialout devices
(DDI_NT_SERIAL_MB_DO) consists of the lowercase character
port name, concatenated with ,cu. For example, the minor
name for the first dialout port on the on-board serial
device is a,cu.

To prevent disks from attempting to automatically generate links for
a device, drivers must specify a private node type and refrain from
using one of the above node types when calling
ddi_create_minor_node(9F).

OPTIONS

The following options are supported:

-r rootdir
Causes ports to presume that the /dev/term, /dev/cua,
and /devices directories are found under rootdir, not
directly under /. If this argument is specified,
sacadm(8) is not invoked, since it would update
terminal administration files under /etc without regard
to the rootdir.

EXAMPLES

Example 1: Creating the Serial and Dialout Minor Device Nodes

The following example creates the serial and dialout minor device
nodes from the xkserial driver's attach(9E) function:

/*
* Create the minor number by combining the instance number
* with the port number.
*/ #define XKNUMPORTS 8
#define XKMINORNUM(i, p) ((i) << 4 | (p))
#define XKMINORNUM_DO(i, p) ((i) << 4 | (p) | 0x80)
int
xkserialattach(dev_info_t *dip, ddi_attach_cmd_t cmd)
{
int instance, portnum;
char name[8];
/* other stuff in attach... */
instance = ddi_get_instance(dip);
for (portnum = 0; portnum < XKNUMPORTS; portnum++) {
/*
* create the serial port device
*/
sprintf(name, "%d", portnum);
ddi_create_minor_node(dip, name, S_IFCHR,
XKMINORNUM(instance, portnum), DDI_NT_SERIAL, 0);

/*
* create the dialout device
*/
sprintf(name,"%d,cu", portnum);
ddi_create_minor_node(dip, name, S_IFCHR,
XKMINORNUM_DO(instance, portnum), DDI_NT_SERIAL_DO, 0);
}
}

Example 2: Installing the xkserial Port Driver on a Sun Fire 4800

The following example installs the xkserial port driver on a Sun Fire
4800 (with the driver controlling the fictional XKSerial 8 port
serial board), with these special files in /devices:

# ls -l /devices/ssm@0,0/pci@18,700000/pci@1/xkserial@f,800000/
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 16 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:0
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 144 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:0,cu
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 17 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:1
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 145 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:1,cu
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 18 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:2
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 146 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:2,cu
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 19 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:3
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 147 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:3,cu
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 20 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:4
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 148 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:4,cu
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 21 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:5
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 149 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:5,cu
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 22 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:6
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 150 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:6,cu
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 23 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:7
crw-r----- 1 root sys 32, 151 Aug 29 00:02 xkserial@2000:7,cu

/dev/term contain symbolic links to the serial port device nodes in
/devices

# ls -l /dev/term
/dev/term/0 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:0
/dev/term/1 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:1
/dev/term/2 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:2
/dev/term/3 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:3
/dev/term/4 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:4
/dev/term/5 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:5
/dev/term/6 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:6
/dev/term/7 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:7

and /dev/cua contain symbolic links to the dialout port device nodes
in /devices

# ls -l /dev/cua

/dev/cua/0 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:0,cu
/dev/cua/1 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:1,cu
/dev/cua/2 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:2,cu
/dev/cua/3 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:3,cu
/dev/cua/4 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:4,cu
/dev/cua/5 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:5,cu
/dev/cua/6 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:6,cu
/dev/cua/7 -> ../../devices/[....]/xkserial@2000:7,cu

FILES

/dev/term/n
Logical serial port devices

/dev/cua/n
Logical dialout port devices

/etc/inittab

/etc/saf/*