6. Special Files

In Unix, any file that does not act as a general-purpose unit of storage is called a special file. These are FIFOs, Unix-domain sockets, and device nodes. In the Hurd, there is no need for the "special file" distinction, since they are implemented by translators, just as regular files are.

Nevertheless, the Hurd maintains this distinction, in order to provide backward compatibility for Unix programs (which do not know about translators). Studying the implementation of Hurd special files is a good way to introduce the idea of translators to people who are familiar with Unix.

This chapter does not discuss `/dev/zero' or any of the microkernel-based devices, since these are translated by the generalized storeio server (FIXME xref).

FIXME: finish

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