No /dev/null on Fedora 17

Question

I'm running Fedora 17 and /dev/null does not exist, why not?

Should I just create it with:

mknod -m 666 /dev/null c 1 3

Warren Young · Answer 1 · 2013-01-02 14:13:31Z

up vote 4 down vote

There's no harm in creating it if it isn't there already.

The real question is why it isn't there. What do you get when you say df -h /dev? How about ps -eaf | grep udevd?

answered Jan 2 at 14:13

Warren Young
17.9k24366

	I don't know what happened but after running `mount` the `/dev` directory looked as expected with all the devices appearing, I'm not sure why `/dev` was only showing a few things before? – sudo_O Jan 2 at 14:23
	I wouldn't just leave it at that. The problem is likely to come back on the next reboot, since `/dev` is now completely dynamic. `mknod` hackery is no longer persistent, as it once was on Unices. I would reboot the system in single-user mode and pay careful attention to the messages dealing with `/dev/` or `udev` you get on startup. Then when it's up, `ls -l /dev` again. If `/dev/null` and others are still missing, run the commands I recommended, adding their output to your question. – Warren Young Jan 2 at 14:49
	Thanks Warren, I will follow your advice and update the question as appropriate. – sudo_O Jan 2 at 14:51
	you could run in all sorts of trouble at boot if you lack /dev/null ... prepare a bootable distribution on CD to help you sort it out... (you will then probably need to mount the relevant partitions to some /tmp/directory(s), and ensure once you chroot into the main one you'll be able to access the commands you'll need to fix everything up) – Olivier Dulac Jan 2 at 18:27

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