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.Dd July 6, 2023
.Dt HIER 7
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm hier
.Nd layout of file systems
.Sh SYNOPSIS
An overview of the file system hierarchy.
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Bl -tag -width "/libexec/"
.It Pa /
root directory
.It Pa /bin/
user utilities that are fundamental to single-user and multi-user modes
.It Pa /boot/
programs and configuration files used during bootstrap of the operating system
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "nvmecontrol/" -compact
.It Pa defaults/
default bootstrap configuration files; see
.Xr loader.conf 5
.It Pa dtb/
compiled flattened device tree (FDT) files; see
.Xr fdt 4
and
.Xr dtc 1
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "overlays/" -compact
.It Pa overlays/
compiled flattened device tree (FDT) overlays; these can be applied using the
.Va fdt_overlays
setting in
.Xr loader.conf 5
.El
.Pp
.It Pa efi/
mount point for the EFI System Partition (ESP) on UEFI systems
.It Pa firmware/
loadable kernel modules containing binary firmware, for hardware to which
firmware must be downloaded
.It Pa kernel/
pure kernel executable (the operating system loaded into memory at boot time)
and kernel modules
.It Pa modules/
third-party loadable kernel modules, such as those associated with
.Xr ports 7
.It Pa zfs/
.Xr zfs 8
pool cache files
.El
.It Pa /compat/
files supporting binary compatibility with other operating systems
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "nvmecontrol/" -compact
.It Pa linux/
default location for
.Xr linux 4
compatibility run-time
.El
.Pp
.It Pa /dev/
the normal mount point for
.Xr devfs 5
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "nvmecontrol/" -compact
.It Pa fd/
file descriptor files; see
.Xr fd 4
.El
.It Pa /etc/
system configuration files and scripts
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "nvmecontrol/" -compact
.It Pa bluetooth/
bluetooth configuration files
.It Pa defaults/
default system configuration files; see
.Xr rc 8
.It Pa localtime
local timezone information; see
.Xr ctime 3
.It Pa mail/
.Xr sendmail 8
control files
.It Pa mtree/
.Xr mtree 8
configuration files
.It Pa pam.d/
configuration files for the Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) library; see
.Xr pam 3
.It Pa periodic/
scripts that are run daily, weekly, or monthly by
.Xr cron 8 ;
see
.Xr periodic 8
.It Pa ppp/
PPP configuration files; see
.Xr ppp 8
.It Pa rc.d/
system and daemon startup/control scripts; see
.Xr rc 8
.It Pa security/
OpenBSM audit configuration files; see
.Xr audit 8
.It Pa ssh/
OpenSSH configuration files; see
.Xr ssh 1
.It Pa ssl/
OpenSSL configuration files
.El
.It Pa /home/
users' home directories; whilst the layout is not standardized, the typical home for an interactive user
.Dv beastie
would be
.Pa /home/beastie/
.It Pa /lib/
system libraries that are critical to binaries in
.Pa /bin
and
.Pa /sbin
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "nvmecontrol/" -compact
.It Pa casper/
service-specific
.Xr libcasper 3
Capsicum support libraries
.It Pa geom/
class-specific libraries for the
.Xr geom 8
utility
.It Pa nvmecontrol/
vendor-specific libraries to extend the
.Xr nvmecontrol 8
utility
.El
.It Pa /libexec/
system utilities that are critical to binaries in
.Pa /bin
and
.Pa /sbin
.It Pa /media/
empty directory commonly containing mount points for removable media such as
USB drives, CDs, and DVDs
.It Pa /mnt/
empty directory commonly used by system administrators as a temporary mount
point
.It Pa /net/
automounted NFS shares; see
.Xr auto_master 5
.It Pa /nonexistent/
a non-existent directory; conventionally, a home directory for special user
accounts that do not require a home directory.  See also
.Pa /var/empty/
.It Pa /proc/
process file system; see
.Xr procfs 5
.It Pa /rescue/
statically-linked programs for emergency recovery; see
.Xr rescue 8
.It Pa /root/
home directory of the root user
.It Pa /sbin/
system programs and administration utilities that are fundamental to
single-user and multi-user modes
.It Pa /tmp/
temporary files that may be removed by
.Xr rc 8 ;
see the
.Va clear_tmp_enable
variable of
.Xr rc.conf 5
.It Pa /usr/
contains the majority of user utilities and applications
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "freebsd-dist/" -compact
.It Pa bin/
common utilities, programming tools, and applications
.It Pa freebsd-dist/
distribution files
.Pq like base.txz ; see
.Xr release 7
and
.Xr bsdinstall 8
.It Pa include/
standard C include files
.It Pa lib/
shared and archive
.Xr ar 1 Ns -type
libraries
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa compat/
shared libraries for compatibility
.It Pa debug/
standalone debug data for the kernel and base system libraries and binaries
.It Pa dtrace/
DTrace library scripts
.It Pa engines/
OpenSSL (Cryptography/SSL toolkit) dynamically loadable engines
.El
.Pp
.It Pa libdata/
miscellaneous utility data files
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa gcc/
GCC configuration data
.It Pa ldscripts/
linker scripts; see
.Xr ld 1
.It Pa pkgconfig/
.Xr pc 5 Pq Pa ports/devel/pkgconf
files; collections of compiler flags, linker flags, and other information
relevant to library use
.El
.Pp
.It Pa libexec/
system daemons and system utilities that are executed by other programs
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa aout/
utilities to manipulate a.out executables
.It Pa elf/
utilities to manipulate ELF executables
.It Pa lpr/
utilities and filters for LP print system; see
.Xr lpr 1
.It Pa sendmail/
the
.Xr sendmail 8
binary; see
.Xr mailwrapper 8
.It Pa sm.bin/
restricted shell for
.Xr sendmail 8 ;
see
.Xr smrsh 8
.El
.Pp
.It Pa local/
local executables, libraries, etc.
Also used as the default destination for the
.Xr ports 7
framework.
Within
.Pa local/ ,
the general layout sketched out by
.Nm
for
.Pa /usr
should be used.
Exceptions are the ports documentation
.Po in
.Pa share/doc/<port>/ Ns Pc ,
and
.Pa /usr/local/etc
.Po mimics
.Pa /etc Ns Pc .
.It Pa obj/
architecture-specific target tree produced by building
.Fx
from source; see
.Xr build 7
.It Pa ports/
.Fx
ports collection; see
.Xr ports 7
.It Pa sbin/
system daemons and system utilities that are executed by users
.It Pa share/
architecture-independent files
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa calendar/
system-wide calendar files; see
.Xr calendar 1
.It Pa dict/
word lists; see
.Xr look 1
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa freebsd
.Fx Ns -specific
terms, proper names, and jargon
.It Pa web2
words from Webster's Second International
.El
.Pp
.It Pa doc/
miscellaneous documentation
.It Pa examples/
various examples for users and programmers
.It Pa firmware/
firmware images loaded by userland programs
.It Pa games/
used by various games
.It Pa keys/
known trusted and revoked keys
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa pkg/
fingerprints for
.Xr pkg 7
and
.Xr pkg 8
.El
.Pp
.It Pa locale/
localization files; see
.Xr setlocale 3
.It Pa man/
manual pages
.It Pa misc/
miscellaneous system-wide files
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa termcap
terminal characteristics database; see
.Xr termcap 5
.El
.Pp
.It Pa mk/
templates for make; see
.Xr make 1
.It Pa nls/
national language support files
.It Pa security/
data files for security policies such as
.Xr mac_lomac 4
.It Pa sendmail/
.Xr sendmail 8
configuration files
.It Pa skel/
example
.Pa .\&
(dot) files for new accounts
.It Pa snmp/
MIBs, example files and tree definitions for the SNMP daemon
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa defs/
tree definition files for use with
.Xr gensnmptree 1
.It Pa mibs/
MIB files
.El
.Pp
.It Pa syscons/
.Xr syscons 4
files
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa fonts/
console fonts; see
.Xr vidcontrol 1
and
.Xr vidfont 1
.It Pa keymaps/
console keyboard maps; see
.Xr kbdcontrol 1
and
.Xr kbdmap 1
.It Pa scrnmaps/
console screen maps
.El
.Pp
.It Pa sysroot/
files necessary for the -sysroot compiler/linker argument to build non-native
binaries
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa VERSION/
files for
.Fx
release VERSION.
By convention,
.Dq VERSION
matches
.Xr uname 1
.Fl r .
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa MACHINE.MACHINE_ARCH/
represent the binary ABI for these files.
.Dq MACHINE
matches
.Xr uname 1
.Fl m .
.Dq MACHINE_ARCH
matches
.Xr uname 1
.Fl p .
.El
.El
.Pp
.It Pa tabset/
tab description files for a variety of terminals; used in the termcap file;
see
.Xr termcap 5
.It Pa vi/
localization support and utilities for
.Xr vi 1
.It Pa vt/
.Xr vt 4
files
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa fonts/
console fonts; see
.Xr vidcontrol 1
and
.Xr vidfont 1
.It Pa keymaps/
console keyboard maps; see
.Xr kbdcontrol 1
and
.Xr kbdmap 1
.\" .It Pa scrnmaps/
.\" console screen maps
.El
.Pp
.It Pa zoneinfo/
timezone configuration information; see
.Xr tzfile 5
.El
.Pp
.It Pa src/
.Fx
source code; see
.Xr development 7 .
The layout of the source tree is described by the top-level
.Pa README.md
file.
.Pp
.It Pa tests/
the
.Fx
test suite; see
.Xr tests 7
.El
.It Pa /var/
log, temporary, transient, and spool files
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "preserve/" -compact
.It Pa account/
system accounting files
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa acct
execution accounting file; see
.Xr acct 5
.El
.Pp
.It Pa at/
timed command scheduling files; see
.Xr at 1
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa jobs/
job files
.It Pa spool/
output spool files
.El
.Pp
.It Pa backups/
miscellaneous backup files
.It Pa cache/
miscellaneous cache files
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa pkg/
cached packages for
.Xr pkg 8
.El
.Pp
.It Pa crash/
default directory for kernel crash dumps; see
.Xr crash 8
and
.Xr savecore 8
.It Pa cron/
.Xr cron 8
files
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa tabs/
.Xr crontab 5
files
.El
.Pp
.It Pa db/
miscellaneous automatically-generated system-specific database files
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "freebsd-update/" -compact
.It Pa freebsd-update/
temporary files and downloads for
.Xr freebsd-update 8
.El
.Pp
.It Pa empty/
for use by programs that require an empty directory.
Uses include privilege separation by
.Xr sshd 8
.It Pa games/
miscellaneous game status and score files
.It Pa heimdal/
Kerberos server databases; see
.Xr kdc 8
.It Pa log/
miscellaneous system log files
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "utx.lastlogin" -compact
.It Pa utx.lastlogin
last login log; see
.Xr getutxent 3
.It Pa utx.log
login/logout log; see
.Xr getutxent 3
.El
.Pp
.It Pa mail/
user mailbox files
.It Pa msgs/
system messages database; see
.Xr msgs 1
.It Pa preserve/
unused, present for historical reasons
.It Pa quotas/
file system quota information files
.It Pa run/
files containing information about the operating system since it was booted
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa bhyve/
.Xr bhyve 8
virtual machine
.Xr unix 4 Ns -domain sockets
.It Pa ppp/
writable by the
.Dq network
group for command connection sockets; see
.Xr ppp 8
.It Pa utx.active
database of current users; see
.Xr getutxent 3
.El
.Pp
.It Pa rwho/
rwho data files; see
.Xr rwhod 8 ,
.Xr rwho 1 ,
and
.Xr ruptime 1
.It Pa spool/
miscellaneous printer and mail system spooling directories
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "clientmqueue/" -compact
.It Pa clientmqueue/
undelivered submission mail queue; see
.Xr sendmail 8
.It Pa ftp/
ftp root directory; see
.Xr ftpd 8
.It Pa mqueue/
undelivered mail queue; see
.Xr sendmail 8
.It Pa output/
line printer spooling directories
.El
.Pp
.It Pa tmp/
temporary files that are not removed by
.Xr rc 8
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "vi.recover/" -compact
.It Pa vi.recover/
.Xr vi 1
recovery files
.El
.Pp
.It Pa yp/
the NIS maps; see
.Xr yp 8
.El
.El
.Sh NOTES
This manual page documents the default
.Fx
file system layout.
The actual hierarchy on a given system is defined at the system
administrator's discretion.
A well-maintained installation will include a customized version of
this document.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr apropos 1 ,
.Xr find 1 ,
.Xr grep 1 ,
.Xr ls 1 ,
.Xr whereis 1 ,
.Xr which 1
.Sh HISTORY
A
.Nm
manual page appeared in
.At v7 .