Editing Solaris 10 System Administration Part I (section)

==== /etc/path_to_inst file ====

Solaris system maps physical name <-> instance name in /etc/path_to_inst file

Solaris kernel uses the names in file to identify every possible device

* file is read only at boot time
* maintained by kernel

Example file from v240:
<pre># cat /etc/path_to_inst 
#
#       Caution! This file contains critical kernel state
#
"/iscsi" 0 "iscsi"
"/pseudo" 0 "pseudo"
"/scsi_vhci" 0 "scsi_vhci"
"/options" 0 "options"
"/ramdisk-root" 0 "ramdisk"
"/pci@1f,700000" 0 "pcisch"
"/pci@1f,700000/network@2" 0 "bge"
"/pci@1f,700000/network@2,1" 1 "bge"
"/pci@1e,600000" 1 "pcisch"
"/pci@1e,600000/isa@7" 0 "ebus"
"/pci@1e,600000/isa@7/power@0,800" 0 "power"
"/pci@1e,600000/isa@7/rmc-comm@0,3e8" 0 "rmc_comm"
"/pci@1e,600000/isa@7/i2c@0,320" 0 "pcf8584"
"/pci@1e,600000/isa@7/i2c@0,320/motherboard-fru-prom@0,a2" 0 "seeprom"
"/pci@1e,600000/isa@7/i2c@0,320/chassis-fru-prom@0,a8" 1 "seeprom"
"/pci@1e,600000/isa@7/i2c@0,320/power-supply-fru-prom@0,b0" 2 "seeprom"
"/pci@1e,600000/isa@7/i2c@0,320/power-supply-fru-prom@0,a4" 3 "seeprom"
"/pci@1e,600000/isa@7/i2c@0,320/dimm-spd@0,b6" 4 "seeprom"
"/pci@1e,600000/isa@7/i2c@0,320/dimm-spd@0,b8" 5 "seeprom"
"/pci@1e,600000/isa@7/i2c@0,320/dimm-spd@0,ba" 6 "seeprom"
"/pci@1e,600000/isa@7/i2c@0,320/dimm-spd@0,bc" 7 "seeprom"
"/pci@1e,600000/isa@7/i2c@0,320/dimm-spd@0,c6" 8 "seeprom"
"/pci@1e,600000/isa@7/i2c@0,320/dimm-spd@0,c8" 9 "seeprom"
"/pci@1e,600000/isa@7/i2c@0,320/dimm-spd@0,ca" 10 "seeprom"
"/pci@1e,600000/isa@7/i2c@0,320/dimm-spd@0,cc" 11 "seeprom"
"/pci@1e,600000/isa@7/i2c@0,320/nvram@0,50" 12 "seeprom"
"/pci@1e,600000/isa@7/i2c@0,320/gpio@0,44" 0 "pca9556"
"/pci@1e,600000/isa@7/i2c@0,320/gpio@0,46" 1 "pca9556"
"/pci@1e,600000/isa@7/i2c@0,320/gpio@0,4a" 2 "pca9556"
"/pci@1e,600000/isa@7/i2c@0,320/gpio@0,68" 3 "pca9556"
"/pci@1e,600000/isa@7/i2c@0,320/gpio@0,88" 4 "pca9556"
"/pci@1e,600000/isa@7/i2c@0,320/gpio@0,70" 5 "pca9556"
"/pci@1e,600000/isa@7/serial@0,3f8" 0 "su"
"/pci@1e,600000/isa@7/serial@0,2e8" 1 "su"
"/pci@1e,600000/pmu@6" 0 "pmubus"
"/pci@1e,600000/pmu@6/gpio@80000000" 0 "pmugpio"
"/pci@1e,600000/pmu@6/i2c@0,0" 0 "smbus"
"/pci@1e,600000/usb@a" 0 "ohci"
"/pci@1e,600000/ide@d" 0 "uata"
"/pci@1e,600000/ide@d/sd@0,0" 3 "sd"
"/memory-controller@0,0" 0 "mc-us3i"
"/memory-controller@1,0" 1 "mc-us3i"
"/pci@1c,600000" 2 "pcisch"
"/pci@1c,600000/scsi@2" 0 "glm"
"/pci@1c,600000/scsi@2/sd@0,0" 0 "sd"
"/pci@1c,600000/scsi@2/sd@1,0" 1 "sd"
"/pci@1c,600000/scsi@2/sd@2,0" 2 "sd"
"/pci@1c,600000/scsi@2/sd@3,0" 4 "sd"
"/pci@1c,600000/scsi@2,1" 1 "glm"
"/pci@1d,700000" 3 "pcisch"
"/pci@1d,700000/network@2" 2 "bge"
"/pci@1d,700000/network@2,1" 3 "bge"
"/pci@1d,700000/pci@1" 0 "pci_pci"
"/pci@1d,700000/pci@1/pci@0" 1 "pci_pci"
"/pci@1d,700000/pci@1/pci@0/network@0" 0 "ce"
"/pci@1d,700000/pci@1/pci@0/network@1" 1 "ce"
"/pci@1d,700000/pci@1/pci@4" 2 "pci_pci"
"/pci@1d,700000/pci@1/pci@4/network@2" 2 "ce"
"/pci@1d,700000/pci@1/pci@4/network@3" 3 "ce"
#</pre>

Instance names correlate values in the last two fields, for example an entry for SCSI disk 3 on Sun v240 from file is "/pci@1c,600000/scsi@2/sd@2,0" 2 "sd"

this line & sd2 identify the same device

physical device path /pci@1c,600000/scsi@2/sd@2,0 identifies the path through the device tree to the device

different systems have different physical device names