NAME
null, zero − data sink
DESCRIPTION
Data written to a null or zero special file is discarded.
Reads from the null special file always return end of file (i.e., read(2) returns 0), whereas reads from zero always return bytes containing zero (\0 characters).
null and zero are typically created by:
mknod −m
666 /dev/null c 1 3
mknod −m 666 /dev/zero c 1 5
chown root:root /dev/null /dev/zero
FILES
/dev/null
/dev/zero
NOTES
If these devices are not writable and readable for all users, many programs will act strangely.
SEE ALSO
COLOPHON
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