CLONE(7)             INTERACTIVE UNIX System             CLONE(7)



          NAME
               clone - open any minor device on a STREAMS driver

          DESCRIPTION
               clone is a STREAMS software driver that finds and opens an
               unused minor device on another STREAMS driver.  The minor
               device passed to clone during the open is interpreted as the
               major device number of another STREAMS driver for which an
               unused minor device is to be obtained.  Each such open
               results in a separate stream to a previously unused minor
               device.

               The clone driver consists solely of an open function.  This
               open function performs all of the necessary work so that
               subsequent system calls [including close(2)] require no
               further involvement of clone.

               clone will generate an ENXIO error, without opening the dev-
               ice, if the minor device number provided does not correspond
               to a valid major device, or if the driver indicated is not a
               STREAMS driver.

          CAVEATS
               Multiple opens of the same minor device cannot be done
               through the clone interface.  Executing stat(2) on the file
               system node for a cloned device yields a different result
               from executing fstat(2) using a file descriptor obtained
               from opening the node.

          SEE ALSO
               log(7).
               STREAMS Programmer's Guide.























          Rev. Networking Support Utilities                          Page 1