[libvirt-users] LXC, libvrt-1.1.2-r3 (Gentoo), "/dev/tty12", mount /dev with inverse of 'nodev'?

Hello again, TL;DR: Today I noticed that my LXC container was out of space in "/dev". It took me a few minutes to figure out why. There were only 23 files there. The "/dev" fs quota was 64K, and all was taken up. The problem was that "syslog-ng" was writing "console" messages to "/dev/tty12". But "/dev/tty12" was not a device node, so the kernel "(2)open"ed it as a file and dutifully wrote to it. I have corrected my syslog-ng config, but I was wondering.... Is there any legitimate reason to EVER have a regular file in "/dev"? If not, can libvirt or Linux be modified so that the filesystem can be mounted in such a way to prevent a regular file from ever being created there? Kind of like an inverse of the "nodev" mount option seen in various filesystems (ext3, nfs). IMHO, I would rather have syslog-ng (or other tool) fail to open a regular file in "/dev", than for it is succeed and then fill up the small fs. Thoughts? Boring stuff: Sep 30 14:06:47 localhost syslog-ng[440]: Error suspend timeout has elapsed, attempting to write again; fd='16' Sep 30 14:06:47 localhost syslog-ng[440]: I/O error occurred while writing; fd='16', error='No space left on device (28)' Sep 30 14:06:47 localhost syslog-ng[440]: Suspending write operation because of an I/O error; fd='16', time_reopen='60' This is what I see inside the container: djenkins@dwj-hfax-dev ~/src/HylaFAX+ $ find /dev | wc -l 23 dwj-hfax-dev ~ # ls -l /dev/tty* crw-rw-rw- 1 root root 5, 0 Sep 30 13:44 /dev/tty lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Sep 30 13:03 /dev/tty1 -> /dev/pts/0 -rw------- 1 root root 65536 Sep 30 14:12 /dev/tty12 ### AHHH!!! There is the problem. "syslog-ng" is writing to "/dev/tty12", but it is a file and not a real device. djenkins@dwj-hfax-dev ~/src/HylaFAX+ $ du -sh /dev 64K /dev djenkins@dwj-hfax-dev ~/src/HylaFAX+ $ df -h /dev Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on devfs 64K 64K 0 100% /dev