.\"-
.\" SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-3-Clause
.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1993
.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
.\"
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.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
.\" are met:
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.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
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.\"    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
.\"    without specific prior written permission.
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.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
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.\"
.Dd March 21, 2024
.Dt HIER 7
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm hier
.Nd layout of
.Fx
file system hierarchy
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Bl -tag -width "/libexec/"
.It Pa /
root directory of the file system
.It Pa /COPYRIGHT
.Fx
copyright information
.It Pa /bin/
user utilities fundamental to both single and multi-user modes
.It Pa /boot/
programs and configurations used during
.Fx
bootstrap
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "loader.conf.d/" -compact
.It Pa defaults/
default bootstrap configuration files; see
.Xr loader.conf 5
.It Pa device.hints
kernel variables for controlling drivers; see
.Xr device.hints 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 EFI System Partition (ESP) on UEFI systems
.It Pa firmware/
loadable binary firmware kernel modules
.It Pa fonts/
binary bitmap console fonts; see
.Xr loader.conf 5
and
.Xr vtfontcvt 8
.It Pa images/
beastie boot menu images; see
.Xr loader_lua 8
.It Pa kernel/
pure kernel executable
.Pq the operating system loaded into memory at boot time
and kernel modules; see
.Xr kldstat 8
.It Pa kernel.old/
alternative kernel and modules
.It Pa loader.conf
boot loader configuration; see
.Xr loader.conf 5
.It Pa loader.conf.d/
.Xr loader.conf 5
configuration files
.It Pa lua/
scripts for kernel bootstrapping final stage; see
.Xr loader_lua 8
.It Pa modules/
third-party loadable kernel modules, such as those installed with
.Xr pkg 8
or from
.Xr ports 7
.It Pa zfs/
ZFS
.Xr zpool 8
cache files
.El
.It Pa /compat/
files supporting binary compatibility with other operating systems
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "loader.conf.d" -compact
.It Pa linux/
default location for
.Xr linux 4
compatibility run-time
.El
.It Pa /dev/
device special files managed by
.Xr devfs 5
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "loader.conf.d" -compact
.It Pa ada0
first ATA storage device
.It Pa ada0p1
first partition on ada0
.It Pa cd0
first optical drive
.It Pa da0
first SCSI storage device
.It Pa da0s1
first partition on da0
.It Pa dri/
GPU character device node; see
.Xr drm 7
.It Pa drm/
GPU
.Xr drm 7
special files
.It Pa fd/
file descriptor files; see
.Xr fd 4
.It Pa fd0
first floppy drive
.It Pa mmcsd0
first SD storage device
.It Pa mmcsd0s1
first partition on mmcsd0
.It Pa nda0
first NVMe storage device attached via
.Xr cam 3
.It Pa null
infinite loop that accepts anything and contains nothing
.It Pa nvd0
first NVMe storage device using NVMe namespaces
.It Pa pts/
pseduo-terminals
.It Pa random
source of weak randomness; see
.Xr random 4
.It Pa sa0
first tape drive
.It Pa usb/
USB busses
.El
.It Pa /entropy
provides initial state to RNG; see
.Xr save-entropy 8
.It Pa /etc/
system wide configuration files and scripts
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "freebsd-update.conf" -compact
.It Pa auto_master
autofs
.Xr automount 8
configuration
.It Pa bluetooth/
bluetooth configuration files
.It Pa cron.d/
tables for driving scheduled tasks; see
.Xr crontab 5
.It Pa crontab
root's cron table
.It Pa defaults/
default system configuration files; see
.Xr rc 8
.It Pa devd/
configuration for
.Xr devd 8 ,
the device state change daemon
.It Pa devfs.conf
boot time device configuration
.It Pa dma/
configuration for
.Xr dma 8
.It Pa freebsd-update.conf
configuration for the base system updater
.Xr freebsd-update 8
.It Pa fstab
static filesystem configuration; see
.Xr fstab 5
.It Pa hosts
database of local hosts if no network name server is running
.It Pa inetd.conf
configuration for
.Bx
heritage internet servers; see
.Xr inetd 8
.It Pa localtime
local timezone information; see
.Xr ctime 3
.It Pa jail.conf.d/
.Xr jail 8
startup scripts.
.It Pa login.conf
login class capability database; see
.Xr login.conf 5
.It Pa machine-id
defines the UUID for the local system, required for dbus
.It Pa mail/
.Xr sendmail 8
control files
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "mailer.conf" -compact
.It Pa aliases
addresses to deliver system mail
.It Pa mailer.conf
.Xr mailwrapper 8
configuration
.El
.Pp
.It Pa motd.template
message displayed upon tty login; see
.Xr motd 5
.It Pa mtree/
system mapper specification; see
.Xr mtree 8
.It Pa newsyslog.conf.d/
log rotation configuration files.
.It Pa ntp/
stored time for the Network Time Protocol
.It Pa ntp.conf
configuration for the NTP client,
.Xr ntpd 8
.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 pf.conf
configuration for the Packet Filter firewall; see
.Xr pf 4
.It Pa pkg/
default configuration for the package manager,
.Xr pkg 8
.It Pa ppp/
PPP configuration files; see
.Xr ppp 8
.It Pa rc.conf
system and daemon configuration; see
.Xr rc.conf 5
.It Pa rc.d/
system and daemon startup/control scripts; see
.Xr rc 8
.It Pa resolv.conf
DNS configuration; see
.Xr resolv.conf 5
.It Pa resolvconf.conf
DNS configuration manager configuration, often generated by
local-unbound; see
.Xr local_unbound 8
or
.Xr resolvconf 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
.It Pa sysctl.conf
kernel state defaults; see
.Xr sysctl.conf 5
.It Pa syslog.conf
system log configuration
.It Pa ttys
tty creation configuration; see
.Xr getty 8
.It Pa wpa_supplicant.conf
client wifi configuration; see
.Xr wpa_supplicant.conf 5
.El
.It Pa /home/
home directories for users; 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 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/
mount points for removable storage media such as CDs, DVDs,
and USB drives; see
.Xr automount 8
or
.Xr bsdisks 8
.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;
by convention, it serves as a home directory
for special user accounts
that need no 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
fundamental to both single 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 header files
.It Pa lib/
shared and archive
.Xr ar 1 Ns -type
libraries
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa clang/
shared libraries for the system compiler,
.Xr clang 1
.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
.Pq Cryptography/SSL toolkit
dynamically loadable engines
.It Pa flua/
.Fx
Lua shared libraries
.It Pa i18n/
shared libraries for internationalization
.El
.Pp
.It Pa lib32/
32-bit comparability libraries
.It Pa libdata/
miscellaneous utility data files
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa ldscripts/
linker scripts; see
.Xr ld 1
.It Pa pkgconfig/
collections of compiler and linker flags for the
.Xr pkgconf 1
development tool
.El
.It Pa libexec/
system daemons and utilities that are executed by other programs
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "bsdinstall/" -compact
.It Pa bsdconfig/
utilities called by the ncurses
.Fx
configuration wizard
.It Pa bsdinstall/
utilities for
.Xr bsdinstall 8
.It Pa dwatch/
profiles for
.Xr dwatch 1
.It Pa fwget/
utilities called by
.Xr fwget 8
.It Pa hyperv/
???
.It Pa lpr/
utilities and filters for the line printer 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
.It Pa zfs/
Z file system utilities
.El
.Pp
.It Pa local/
default destination for local executables, libraries, etc, installed by
.Xr pkg 7
or
.Xr ports 7
.Pp
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
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa share/doc/freebsd/
articles, books, FAQ, and handbooks available from the
.Fx
project
.El
.Pp
.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 utilities meant for user execution
.It Pa share/
architecture-independent files
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa calendar/
a variety of pre-fab calendar files; see
.Xr calendar 1
.It Pa certs/
TLS certificates for
.Xr openssl 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 dtrace/
scripts for the Dynamic Tracing Compiler; see
.Xr dtrace 1
.It Pa examples/
various examples for users and programmers
.It Pa firmware/
firmware images loaded by userland programs
.It Pa games/
ASCII text files used by
.Bx
heritage 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/
system manual pages
.It Pa misc/
miscellaneous system-wide ASCII text files
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa ascii
chart of the ASCII codepoints
.It Pa flowers
the meanings of flowers
.It Pa magic
magic numbers used by
.Xr file 1
.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/
management Information Base
.Pq 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/
files used by the system console; see
.Xr vt 4
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa fonts/
console fonts; see
.Xr vidcontrol 1 ,
.Xr vidfont 1 ,
and
.Xr vtfontcvt 8
.It Pa keymaps/
console keyboard maps; see
.Xr kbdcontrol 1
and
.Xr kbdmap 1
.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 Ds -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 Ds -compact
.It Pa jobs/
job files
.It Pa spool/
output spool files
.El
.Pp
.It Pa audit/
security event audit trail files; see
.Xr audit 8
.It Pa authpf/
user shell sessions for authenticating gateways; see
.Xr authpf 8
.It Pa backups/
critical system configuration backups
.It Pa cache/
miscellaneous cache files
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Ds -compact
.It Pa pkg/
cached packages for
.Xr pkg 8
.It Pa cups/
cached printers for the Common Unix Prinitng system; see
.Xr cups 1
.El
.Pp
.It Pa crash/
default directory to store kernel crash dumps; see
.Xr crash 8
and
.Xr savecore 8
.It Pa cron/
files used by cron; see
.Xr cron 8
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Ds -compact
.It Pa tabs/
crontab files; see
.Xr crontab 5
.El
.Pp
.It Pa db/
miscellaneous automatically-generated system-specific database files
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "freebsd-update/" -compact
.It Pa etcupdate/
temporary files and log for
.Xr etcupdate 8
.It Pa freebsd-update/
downloads and temporary files for
.Xr freebsd-update 8
.It Pa pkg/
package database
.El
.Pp
.It Pa empty/
for use by programs that require an empty directory,
used for instance by
.Xr sshd 8
for privilege separation
.It Pa games/
miscellaneous game status and score files for
.Bx
heritage games
.It Pa heimdal/
Kerberos server databases; see
.Xr kdc 8
.It Pa lib/
holds state information for applications ported from linux
.It Pa log/
system log files
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "bsdinstall_log" -compact
.It Pa Xorg.0.log
.Xr Xserver 1
log, if
.Xr X 7
is installed
rotates to
.Pa Xorg.0.log.old
.It Pa aculog
serial line access log; see
.Xr cu 1
.It Pa auth.log
system authentication log
.It Pa bsdinstall_log
system installation log
.It Pa bsdisks.log
FreeDesktop.org automounter log, if a desktop environment is using
.Xr bsdisks 8 ,
from
.Xr ports 7
.It Pa cron
scheduled task log; see
.Xr cron 8
.It Pa cups/
logs for
.Xr cups 1
.It Pa daemon.log
default log for system daemons
.It Pa devd.log
default log for device state change daemon
.It Pa dmesg.today
system message buffer log
Rotates to
.Pa dmesg.yesterday
.It Pa debug.log
???
.It Pa lpd-errs
logs for the line printer daemon; see
.Xr lpd 8
.It Pa maillog
.Xr sendmail 8
log, rotates and compresses to maillog.0.bz2
.It Pa messages
general system log; see
.Xr syslog 3
.It Pa mount.today
currently loaded
.Xr fstab 5 ,
rotates to
.Pa mount.yesterday
.It Pa pf.today
packet filter firewall log; see
.Xr pf 4
.It Pa pflog
saved packets caught by
.Xr pflogd 8
.It Pa ppp.log
see
.Xr ppp 8
.It Pa security
transcript of events marked with the security flag
.It Pa setuid.today
listing of executable files which run with elevated permissions, rotates
to
.Pa setuid.yesterday
.It Pa userlog
logs changes in users or groups
.It Pa utx.lastlogin
last login log; see
.Xr getutxent 3
.It Pa utx.log
login/logout log; see
.Xr getutxent 3
.It Pa xferlog
default log for
.Xr ftpd 8
.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/
UFS quota information files
.It Pa run/
files containing information about the operating system since it was booted
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "wpa_supplicant/" -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
.It Pa wpa_supplicant/
IEEE Std. 802.11 wifi run time files
.El
.Pp
.It Pa rwho/
information about other systems on the local network; 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 cups/
print jobs and temporary files for
.Xr cups 1
.It Pa dma/
undelivered mail queue for
.Dx
Mail Agent; see
.Xr dma 8
.It Pa lock/
???
.It Pa ftp/
ftp root directory; see
.Xr ftpd 8
.It Pa mqueue/
undelivered mail queue for
.Xr sendmail 8
.It Pa output/
line printer spooling directories
.El
.Pp
.It Pa tmp/
temporary files that are not removed between system reboots by
.Xr rc 8
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "vi.recover/" -compact
.It Pa vi.recover/
recovery files for the
.Xr vi 1
editor
.El
.Pp
.It Pa unbound/
files and configuration for
.Xr unbound 8
.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 first appeared in 1979 with
.At v7 .