Pseudo-devices

Pseudo-devices

Device nodes on Unix-like systems do not necessarily have to correspond to physical devices. Nodes that lack this correspondence form the group ofpseudo-devices. They provide various functions handled by the operating system. Some of the most commonly-used (character-based) pseudo-devices include:

/dev/null

Accepts and discards all input; produces no output.

/dev/zero

Produces a continuous stream of  NUL (zero value) bytes.

/dev/random

Produces a variable-length stream of  pseudo-random or  truly random numbers. ( Blocking)

/dev/urandom

Produces a variable-length stream of  pseudo-random numbers. (Non-Blocking)

/dev/full

Produces a continuous stream of  NUL (zero value) bytes when read, and returns a "disk full" message when written to.