System Administration Commands                     ramdiskadm(1M)



NAME
     ramdiskadm - administer ramdisk pseudo device

SYNOPSIS
     /usr/sbin/ramdiskadm -a name size [g  m  k  b]


     /usr/sbin/ramdiskadm -d name


     /usr/sbin/ramdiskadm


DESCRIPTION
     The ramdiskadm command administers ramdisk(7D), the  ramdisk
     driver. Use ramdiskadm to create a new named ramdisk device,
     delete an existing named ramdisk, or list information  about
     existing ramdisks.


     Ramdisks created using ramdiskadm are not persistent  across
     reboots.

OPTIONS
     The following options are supported:

     -a name size    Create a ramdisk named name of size size and
                     its corresponding block and character device
                     nodes.

                     name must be composed only of the characters
                     a-z, A-Z, 0-9,  (underbar), and - (hyphen),
                     but it must not begin with a hyphen. It must
                     be  no more than 32 characters long. Ramdisk
                     names must be unique.

                     The size can be a decimal number,  or,  when
                     prefixed  with 0x, a hexadecimal number, and
                     can specify the size in bytes  (no  suffix),
                     512-byte  blocks (suffix b), kilobytes (suf-
                     fix k), megabytes (suffix  m)  or  gigabytes
                     (suffix g). The size of the ramdisk actually
                     created might be larger than that specified,
                     depending on the hardware implementation.

                     If  the  named   ramdisk   is   successfully
                     created, its block device path is printed on
                     standard out.


     -d name         Delete an existing ramdisk of the name name.
                     This  command  succeeds  only when the named



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System Administration Commands                     ramdiskadm(1M)



                     ramdisk is not open. The  associated  memory
                     is freed and the device nodes are removed.

                     You can delete only ramdisks  created  using
                     ramdiskadm.  It  is not possible to delete a
                     ramdisk that was  created  during  the  boot
                     process.



     Without options, ramdiskadm  lists  any  existing  ramdisks,
     their sizes (in decimal), and whether they can be removed by
     ramdiskadm (see the description of the -d option, above).

EXAMPLES
     Example 1 Creating a 2MB Ramdisk Named mydisk

       # ramdiskadm -a mydisk 2m
       /dev/ramdisk/mydisk



     Example 2 Listing All Ramdisks

       # ramdiskadm
       Block Device                   Size  Removable
       /dev/ramdisk/miniroot     134217728    No
       /dev/ramdisk/certfs         1048576    No
       /dev/ramdisk/mydisk         2097152    Yes



EXIT STATUS
     ramdiskadm returns the following exit values:

     0     Successful completion.


     >0    An error occurred.


ATRIBUTES
     See attributes(5) for descriptions of the  following  attri-
     butes:











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System Administration Commands                     ramdiskadm(1M)



     
           ATRIBUTE TYPE               ATRIBUTE VALUE       
    
     Availability                 SUNWcsr                     
    
     Interface Stability          Evolving                    
    


SEE ALSO
     attributes(5), ramdisk(7D)

NOTES
     The abilities of ramdiskadm and the privilege level  of  the
     person  who  uses  the utility are controlled by the permis-
     sions of /dev/ramdiskctl. Read access  allows  query  opera-
     tions, for example, listing device information. Write access
     is required to do any state-changing operations,  for  exam-
     ple, creating or deleting ramdisks.


     As shipped, /dev/ramdiskctl is owned by root, in group  sys,
     and mode 0644, so all users can do query operations but only
     root can perform state-changing operations. An administrator
     can give write access to non-privileged users, allowing them
     to add or delete ramdisks. However,  granting  such  ability
     entails  considerable  risk; such privileges should be given
     only to a trusted group.



























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