> I'd like to know why /dev/cd0a and /dev/rcd0a device files (at my

quoted text
> machine) refer to the same physical device, given that one is not a

> symlink to the other one, and vice-versa, and also given that cd0a is

> a block device and rcd0a is a character device.

The kernel handles two kinds of device nodes: ``block'' devices and

``character'' devices. The major numbers of these devices are

platform-dependant, and must match the bdevsw[] and cdevsw[] arrays

in sys/arch///conf.c.
Storage devices can be accessed either as block devices or character

devices, hence they have one entry in each of these tables. Their major

numbers do not need to match since these are completely independant

numbering spaces.
Miod