Sheesh, maybe back in the 4.4 days?  I recommend the following link the gives some background as part of the implementation of the DEVFS that occurred back in the early 90s.

http://www.usenix.org/legacy/events/bsdcon/full_papers/kamp/kamp_html

Also, see introduction to chapter 14 in the Linux Device Drivers, 2nd Edition 

http://www.xml.com/ldd/chapter/book/ch14.html

Patrick 

Coming to you from deep inside Fortress Mahan

> On Jan 28, 2016, at 2:48 PM, jdow <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
>> On 2016-01-28 14:33, Patrick Mahan wrote:
>>> On 1/27/16 1:23 PM, David Sommerseth wrote:
>>> On 27/01/16 11:13, jdow wrote:
>>>> Fascinating. I made a bad "assumption" about network devices. It seems they
>>>> are created dynamically without any presence in /dev.
>>> 
>>> IIRC, *BSD provides /dev nodes for network devices which the user-space can
>>> use for configuring it and such.  But it's many years since I played with
>>> FreeBSD, so my memory is scarce.
>> 
>> Nope, BSD (FreeBSD, NetBSD, etc) do not show any network devices under /dev.  And
>> kernel device configuration is done via sysctl commands as opposed to using
>> /sysfs in linux.
>> 
>> Patrick Mahan
> 
> Was that true a decade and a half ago give or take a little?
> 
> {^_^}