Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!gatech!udel!mmdf
From: jnall%FSU.BITNET@cornellc.cit.cornell.edu (John Nall 904-644-5241)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re:  /dev/null in Minix 1.3
Message-ID: <18114@louie.udel.EDU>
Date: 21 Jun 89 01:28:50 GMT
Sender: mmdf@udel.EDU
Lines: 17

>  Does someone know where I can find the patch for the null device
>  (/dev/null) in Minix 1.3?  I referring to the problem where
>  cat /dev/null > a_file does not result in a file with 0 bytes,
>  but a file that grows until you kill the cat command.

I have not seen any patches for the problem, but in my case it was
fixed by changing /dev/null back to a character device.  Somehow, it
gets changed to a block device, and that causes the problem referred
to.  Fixing it is easy:

     cd /dev
     rm null
     mknod null c 1 3

(and, of course, changing it on the original root image)

John Nall