permissions -

[Rick Stevens]

On 09/23/2013 01:13 PM, Bob Goodwin ~ Zuni, Virginia, USA issued this 
missive:
>
>
> On 23/09/13 15:05, Bob Goodwin ~ Zuni, Virginia, USA wrote:
>>
>> I spent the last half hour googling with no success. What does the "b"
>> mean and how is it controlled?
>>
>> [root at box10 bobg]# ll /dev/sdb*
>> brw-rw----. 1 root disk 8, 16 Sep 23 14:36 /dev/sdb
>> brw-rw----. 1 root disk 8, 17 Sep 23 14:36 /dev/sdb1
>>
>> Bob
>>
> Perhaps I did not make that clear, I refer to the the "b"  in "brw-rw----."
>

The first character in an "ls -l" is the type of file. From the info
page (info ls...navigate to "What information is listed"):

      The file type is one of the following characters:

      '-'  regular file
      'b'  block special file
      'c'  character special file
      'C'  high performance ("contiguous data") file
      'd'  directory
      'D'  door (Solaris 2.5 and up)
      'l'  symbolic link
      'M'  off-line ("migrated") file (Cray DMF)
      'n'  network special file (HP-UX)
      'p'  FIFO (named pipe)
      'P'  port (Solaris 10 and up)
      's'  socket
      '?'  some other file type
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- Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer, AllDigital    ricks at alldigital.com -
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-                                                -- Jamie Hyneman    -
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