The Linux filesystem is a unique and complex beast. This decades old system contains many hidden gems that you could spend a lifetime discovering. There are also a lot of unique idiosyncrasies to how things function. Luckily for us, these examples won’t take years to learn.
Linux has the concept of device files, this means that every “device” on the system is also a file. You can do useful things when interacting with a device via a file. Some of them aren’t even real devices at all, just representations, emulations or in some cases handy functions.
In this article we’re going to learn about a few of the special devices that exist on a Linux system. These have unique properties that can assist with tasks like number generation or even destroying data.
1. /dev/null
This is one of the most widely known special devices on a Linux system. There is a solid chance you’ve already piped some data to /dev/null in order to watch it disappear.
This is precisely what /dev/null does. It takes anything you send to it and discards it immediately. This is essentially a device that you can safely write massive amounts of data to and have it go away. Think of it like a black hole.
If you’re testing a program that will produce a lot of output, and you don’t want it, /dev/null is the perfect place to redirect it.