Raw dev files

We have been bitten twice by some install programs this year that have gone through and changed the permissions on our informix raw dev files, which you could imagine have caused us some greif. For those of you from HP be careful when installing starbase from corporate on an 870. I have been told that dev files can live outside of /dev or rdev but that it takes a little bit of OS maintenance for this to occur -- this would be the ideal solution -- anyone done it. The solution that our IT administrator is suggesting is that we change the dev name to a name which would still contain the Minor and Major numbers but is not the system default name. Both install programs have changed the permissions on only default special files. This is a simple low risk way to solve the problem but we are still vulnerable residing int the dev directory. Any advice is appreciated. -- Mikea