6.1 Device Types

Device files aren't ordinary files—they do not represent regions of data on a disk-based file system. Instead, data read from or written to a device file is communicated to the corresponding device driver, and from there to the underlying device. Device files come in two flavors:

·         A character device represents a hardware device that reads or writes a serial stream of data bytes. Serial and parallel ports, tape drives, terminal devices, and sound cards are examples of character devices.

·         A block device represents a hardware device that reads or writes data in fixed-size blocks. Unlike a character device, a block device provides random access to data stored on the device. A disk drive is an example of a block device.

Typical application programs will never use block devices. While a disk drive is represented as block devices, the contents of each disk partition typically contain a file system, and that file system is mounted into GNU/Linux's root file system tree. Only the kernel code that implements the file system needs to access the block device directly; application programs access the disk's contents through normal files and directories.

Dangers of Block Devices Block devices provide direct access to disk drive data. Although most GNU/Linux systems are configured to prevent nonroot processes from accessing these devices directly, a root process can inflict severe damage by changing the contents of the disk. By writing to a disk block device, a program can modify or destroy file system control information and even a disk's partition table and master boot record, thus rendering a drive or even the entire system unusable. Always access these devices with great care.

Applications sometimes make use of character devices, though. We'll discuss several of them in the following sections.