General query about file: /dev/null2

[Joanne Keegan]

Hi Everyone,

On most of our servers we have the file /dev/null2. While I know the purpose of /dev/null - I don't why this one (null2) exists. I've tried searching ITRC, but can't find any information.

Has anyone got these files, and if so, do you know their purpose in life? Can I safely delete it?

Regards

Jo

[Michael Tully · Accepted solution]

Hi Joanne,

I cannot think of why this file actually gets
created, however it is a nornal file as opposed
to /dev/null which is a character file.
The one I have here was created around the time
of the build of the server, so I would safely say it can be deleted.

# ll /dev/nul*
crw-rw-r-- 1 bin bin 3 0x000002 Mar 12 12:33 /dev/null
-rw-r--r-- 1 root sys 0 May 2 2001 /dev/null2
crw-rw-r-- 1 root sys 72 0x000019 Mar 9 21:35 /dev/nuls

Michael

[Joanne Keegan]

Hi Michael,

Thanks for your timely response!

I agree with what you have said.

Regards,

Jo

[Darrell Allen]

Hi Joanne,

My "theory": /dev/null2 is installed when DIAGNOSTICS are installed.

I checked a couple of servers and found /dev/null2 was date/time stamped at the same time as some files in /opt/pred/bin. That was also when I upgraded diags from the support plus cd.

Safe to delete? I don't know. I believe I'd leave it.

If you have deleted /dev/null2 and you're running Predictive, you may want to verify it's still working okay.

Darrell