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DEVICE.HINTS(5) FreeBSD File Formats Manual DEVICE.HINTS(5) NAME device.hints -- device resource hints DESCRIPTION The device.hints file is read in by the boot loader(8) when the system is about to start and its contents will be passed to the kernel. It con- tains various variables to control the boot behavior of the kernel. These variables are typically ``device hints''. The file contains one variable per line. Lines starting with the `#' character are comments and are ignored by the boot loader. After the file is read by the boot loader, you may examine the variables by the show command, and may add a new variable, modify existing one, or delete one by the set and unset commands of the boot loader (see loader(8)). After the system has started, you can dump these variables by the kenv(1) command. DEVICE HINTS Device hint variables are used by device drivers to set up the device. They are most often used by ISA device drivers to specify where the driver will probe for the relevant devices, and what resources it will attempt to use. A device hint line looks like: hint.driver.unit.keyword="value" where driver is the name of a device driver, unit is the unit number, keyword is the keyword of the hint. The keyword may be: at specifies a bus to which the device is attached. port specifies the start address of I/O ports to be used by the device. irq is the interrupt line number to be used. drq is the DMA channel number. maddr specifies the physical memory address occupied by the device. flags sets various flag bits for the device. disabled is set to "1" to disable the device. A device driver may require one or more hint lines with these keywords, and may accept other keywords not listed here. Consult individual device drivers' manual pages for available keywords and their possible values. FILES /boot/device.hints Device resource hints file. /sys/ARCH/conf/GENERIC.hints Sample resource hints for the GENERIC ker- nel. /sys/ARCH/conf/NOTES Notes on the kernel configuration file and device resource hints. EXAMPLES The following example sets up resources for the sio(4) driver on the ISA bus: hint.sio.0.at="isa" hint.sio.0.port="0x3F8" hint.sio.0.flags="0x10" hint.sio.0.irq="4" The following example disables the ACPI driver: hint.acpi.0.disabled="1" SEE ALSO kenv(1), loader.conf(5), loader(8) HISTORY The device.hints file first appeared in FreeBSD 5.0. FreeBSD 11.1 October 7, 2001 FreeBSD 11.1
NAME | DESCRIPTION | DEVICE HINTS | FILES | EXAMPLES | SEE ALSO | HISTORY
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