Adding a device from a kernel module the udev way (pi, a device that prints out the value of pi)

It seems like the interface for creating modules has changed a bit, and udev is the way to go. Here is a short, quick and dirty module that creates /dev/pi with anonymous major and minor using udev.

The module creates the device (not the file) with register_chrdev, which returns the value of the major number that was assigned. We then use class_create to create a udev class to contain the device, finally you call device_create to actually make the device file.

To remove the device, you call device_destroy to remove the device from the class, then class_unregister to remove the class from sysfs. class_destroy is called to delete the class and finally unregister_chrdev to remove the device from the kernel (the device not the file).

The relevant init and exit sections are: static int pi_init(void) { struct device *err_dev; msg = kmalloc(sizeof(char)*DIGITS, GFP_ATOMIC); // register pi as a device pi_Major = register_chrdev(0, DEVICE_NAME, &fops); if (pi_Major 0) { printk ("Failed to register device %s with error %d\n", DEVICE_NAME, pi_Major); return pi_Major; } /* create /dev/pi * we use udev to make the file */ pi_class = class_create(THIS_MODULE,DEVICE_NAME); err_dev = device_create(pi_class, NULL, MKDEV(pi_Major,0),NULL,DEVICE_NAME); return 0; } /* remove the module */ static void pi_exit(void) { /* free our memory, then destroy the device * then unregister the class and destroy it (unregister before destroy....important */ kfree(msg); device_destroy(pi_class,MKDEV(pi_Major,0)); class_unregister(pi_class); class_destroy(pi_class); unregister_chrdev(pi_Major, DEVICE_NAME); } Hope that helps someone out there. source files