---
name: "sys_dev"
section: "5"
platform: "linux"
package: "man-pages"
version: "6.20-1"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-07"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://carta.tech/man/sys_dev"
---

# sys\_dev(5)

system devices

## NAME

/sys/dev/ - system devices

## SYNOPSIS

*/sys/dev/*

## DESCRIPTION

This directory contains two subdirectories *block/* and *char/*, corresponding, respectively, to the block and character devices on the system. Inside each of these subdirectories are symbolic links with names of the form *major-ID*:*minor-ID*, where the ID values correspond to the major and minor ID of a specific device. Each symbolic link points to the **sysfs** directory for a device. The symbolic links inside */sys/dev/* thus provide an easy way to look up the **sysfs** interface using the device IDs returned by a call to [**stat**(2)](/man/stat/2.md) (or similar).

The following shell session shows an example from */sys/dev/*:

```
$ stat -c "%t %T" /dev/null;
1 3
$ readlink /sys/dev/char/1\:3;
../../devices/virtual/mem/null
$ ls -Fd /sys/devices/virtual/mem/null;
/sys/devices/virtual/mem/null/
$ ls -d1 /sys/devices/virtual/mem/null/*;
/sys/devices/virtual/mem/null/dev
/sys/devices/virtual/mem/null/power/
/sys/devices/virtual/mem/null/subsystem@
/sys/devices/virtual/mem/null/uevent
```

## STANDARDS

Linux.

## HISTORY

Linux 2.6.0.

## SEE ALSO

[**sysfs**(5)](/man/sysfs/5.md)