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From: dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.bugs.4bsd
Subject: Re: more unix jokes - /dev/null
Summary: It can be essential to keep a backup copy of /dev/null
Keywords: backup copy of /dev/null
Message-ID: <4020@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Date: 20 Sep 88 03:13:13 GMT
References: <8488@smoke.ARPA> <26090@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <1049@sybase.sybase.com> <1414@star.cs.vu.nl> <605@sering.cwi.nl>
Reply-To: dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi)
Organization: CS Dept, Ball St U, Muncie, Indiana
Lines: 17

>#	command > /dev/null
>#
>#But what would you do if you happened to have no such device? :-)

My Microport System V/AT once lost /dev/null.  I began seeing strange
diagnostics from some programs and it took me while to figure out what
was happening.

A thorough check in the manual revealed no information about the
major/minor device number for /dev/null so I couldn't use mknod to
re-create it.

I finally restored /dev/null from a backup disk.  Now how's that for an
ironical situation?  I had never before realized how important it is to
keep a safe backup copy of /dev/null.
-- 
Rahul Dhesi         UUCP:  !{iuvax,pur-ee,uunet}!bsu-cs!dhesi