ROOT(4S)

NAME
root - pseudo-driver for Sun386i root disk

CONFIG
pseudo-device rootdev

AVAILABILITY

Available only on Sun 386i systems running a SunOS 4.0.x release or earlier. Not a SunOS 4.1 release feature.

DESCRIPTION

The root pseudo-driver provides indirect, device-independent access to the root disk on a diskful Sun workstation. The root disk is the disk where the mounted root partition resides - typically the disk from which the system was booted.

The intent of the root device is to allow uniform access to the partitions on the root disk, regardless of the disk's controller type or unit number. For example, the following version of /etc/fstab will work for any disk (assuming the disk has the standard partitions and filesystems):

    /dev/roota /       4.2 rw 1 1
    /dev/rootg /usr    4.2 ro 1 2
    /dev/rooth /export 4.2 rw 1 3

When the root device is opened, the open and all subsequent operations on that device (read(2V), write(2V), ioctl(2), close(2V)) are redirected to the real disk. Therefore, all device-dependent operations on a particular disk are still accessible via the root device (see dkio(4S)).

FILES
/dev/root[a-h]
    block partitions
/dev/rroot[a-h]
    raw partitions

SEE ALSO
fstab(5), sd(4S), open(2V), dkio(4S)