1.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 6.\" are met: 7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 8.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 10.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 11.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 12.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 13.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 14.\" without specific prior written permission. 15.\" 16.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 17.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 18.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 19.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 20.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 21.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 22.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 23.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 24.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 25.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 26.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 27.\" 28.\" @(#)hier.7 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/5/93 29.\" $FreeBSD$ 30.\" 31.Dd September 10, 2019 32.Dt HIER 7 33.Os 34.Sh NAME 35.Nm hier 36.Nd layout of file systems 37.Sh DESCRIPTION 38A sketch of the file system hierarchy. 39.Bl -tag -width "/libexec/" 40.It Pa / 41root directory of the file system 42.It Pa /bin/ 43user utilities fundamental to both single-user and multi-user environments 44.It Pa /boot/ 45programs and configuration files used during operating system bootstrap 46.Pp 47.Bl -tag -width "defaults/" -compact 48.It Pa defaults/ 49default bootstrapping configuration files; see 50.Xr loader.conf 5 51.It Pa dtb/ 52Compiled flattened device tree (FDT) files; see 53.Xr fdt 4 54and 55.Xr dtc 1 56.It Pa firmware/ 57loadable kernel modules containing binary firmware for hardware that needs 58firmware downloaded to it to function 59.It Pa kernel/ 60pure kernel executable (the operating system loaded into memory 61at boot time) and kernel modules 62.It Pa modules/ 63third-party loadable kernel modules; 64see 65.Xr kldstat 8 66.It Pa overlays/ 67Compiled flattened device tree (FDT) overlays; see 68.Xr fdt 4 69and 70.Xr dtc 1 71.It Pa zfs/ 72.Xr zfs 8 73zpool cache files 74.El 75.It Pa /cdrom/ 76default mount point for CD-ROM drives 77.It Pa /compat/ 78normally a link to 79.Pa /usr/compat . 80If not, then the 81.Pa /usr/compat 82comments apply 83.It Pa /dev/ 84device special files managed by 85.Xr devfs 5 86.Pp 87.Bl -tag -width "defaults/" -compact 88.It Pa fd/ 89file descriptor files; 90see 91.Xr \&fd 4 92.El 93.It Pa /etc/ 94system configuration files and scripts 95.Pp 96.Bl -tag -width "defaults/" -compact 97.It Pa defaults/ 98default system configuration files; 99see 100.Xr rc 8 101.It Pa bluetooth/ 102bluetooth configuration files 103.It Pa localtime 104local timezone information; 105see 106.Xr ctime 3 107.It Pa mail/ 108Sendmail control files 109.It Pa mtree/ 110mtree configuration files; 111see 112.Xr mtree 8 113.It Pa pam.d/ 114configuration files for the Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) 115library 116.It Pa periodic/ 117scripts that are run daily, weekly, and monthly, via 118.Xr cron 8 ; 119see 120.Xr periodic 8 121.It Pa rc.d/ 122system and daemon startup/control scripts; 123see 124.Xr rc 8 125.It Pa security/ 126OpenBSM audit configuration files; 127see 128.Xr audit 8 129.It Pa ppp/ 130ppp configuration files; 131see 132.Xr ppp 8 133.It Pa ssh/ 134OpenSSH configuration files; 135see 136.Xr ssh 1 137.It Pa ssl/ 138OpenSSL configuration files 139.El 140.It Pa /lib/ 141critical system libraries needed for binaries in 142.Pa /bin 143and 144.Pa /sbin 145.Pp 146.Bl -tag -width "defaults/" -compact 147.It Pa casper/ 148service-specific 149.Xr libcasper 3 150Capsicum support libraries 151.It Pa geom/ 152class-specific libraries for the 153.Xr geom 8 154utility 155.It Pa nvmecontrol/ 156vendor-specific libraries to extend the 157.Xr nvmecontrol 8 158utility 159.El 160.It Pa /libexec/ 161critical system utilities needed for binaries in 162.Pa /bin 163and 164.Pa /sbin 165.It Pa /media/ 166contains subdirectories to be used as mount points 167for removable media such as CDs, USB drives, and 168floppy disks 169.It Pa /mnt/ 170empty directory commonly used by 171system administrators as a temporary mount point 172.It Pa /net/ 173automounted NFS shares; 174see 175.Xr auto_master 5 176.It Pa /proc/ 177process file system; 178see 179.Xr procfs 5 180.It Pa /rescue/ 181statically linked programs for emergency recovery; 182see 183.Xr rescue 8 184.It Pa /root/ 185root's HOME directory 186.It Pa /sbin/ 187system programs and administration utilities 188fundamental to both single-user and multi-user environments 189.It Pa /tmp/ 190temporary files that are not guaranteed to persist across system reboots 191.It Pa /usr/ 192contains the majority of user utilities and applications 193.Pp 194.Bl -tag -width "defaults/" -compact 195.It Pa bin/ 196common utilities, programming tools, and applications 197.It Pa compat/ 198files needed to support binary compatibility with other operating systems, 199such as Linux 200.It Pa include/ 201standard C include files 202.Pp 203.Bl -tag -width "kerberos5/" -compact 204.It Pa arpa/ 205C include files for Internet service protocols 206.It Pa bsnmp/ 207C include files for the SNMP daemon 208.It Pa c++/ 209C++ include files 210.It Pa cam/ 211C include files for the Common Access Methods Layer 212.Bl -tag -width "kerberos5/" -compact 213.It Pa scsi/ 214SCSI device on top of CAM 215.El 216.It Pa dev/ 217C include files for programming various 218.Fx 219devices 220.Bl -tag -width "kerberos5/" -compact 221.It Pa ic/ 222various header files describing driver- and bus-independent 223hardware circuits 224.It Pa ofw/ 225Open Firmware support 226.It Pa pbio/ 2278255 PPI cards; 228see 229.Xr pbio 4 230.It Pa ppbus/ 231parallel port bus; 232see 233.Xr ppbus 4 234.It Pa usb/ 235USB subsystem 236.It Pa wi/ 237.Xr wi 4 238WaveLAN driver 239.El 240.It Pa fs/ 241.Bl -tag -width "kerberos5/" -compact 242.It Pa fdescfs/ 243per-process file descriptors file system 244.It Pa msdosfs/ 245MS-DOS file system 246.It Pa nfs/ 247C include files for NFS (Network File System) version 2, 3 and 4 248.It Pa nullfs/ 249loopback file system 250.It Pa procfs/ 251process file system 252.It Pa smbfs/ 253SMB/CIFS file system 254.It Pa udf/ 255UDF file system 256.It Pa unionfs 257union file system 258.El 259.It Pa geom/ 260GEOM framework 261.Bl -tag -width "kerberos5/" -compact 262.It Pa concat/ 263CONCAT GEOM class 264.It Pa gate/ 265GATE GEOM class 266.It Pa mirror/ 267MIRROR GEOM class 268.It Pa nop/ 269NOP GEOM class 270.It Pa raid3/ 271RAID3 GEOM class 272.It Pa stripe/ 273STRIPE GEOM class 274.El 275.It Pa libmilter/ 276C include files for libmilter, 277the 278.Xr sendmail 8 279mail filter API 280.It Pa machine/ 281machine-specific C include files 282.It Pa net/ 283miscellaneous network C include files 284.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 285.It Pa altq/ 286C include files for alternate queueing 287.El 288.It Pa net80211/ 289C include files for 802.11 wireless networking; 290see 291.Xr net80211 4 292.It Pa netinet/ 293C include files for Internet standard protocols; 294see 295.Xr inet 4 296.It Pa netinet6/ 297C include files for Internet protocol version 6; 298see 299.Xr inet6 4 300.It Pa netipsec/ 301kernel key-management service; 302see 303.Xr ipsec 4 304.It Pa netsmb/ 305SMB/CIFS requester 306.It Pa nfs/ 307C include files for NFS (Network File System) version 2 and 3 (legacy) 308.It Pa openssl/ 309OpenSSL (Cryptography/SSL toolkit) headers 310.It Pa protocols/ 311C include files for Berkeley service protocols 312.It Pa rpc/ 313remote procedure calls; 314see 315.Xr rpc 3 316.It Pa rpcsvc/ 317definition of RPC service structures; see 318.Xr rpc 3 319.It Pa security/ 320PAM; see 321.Xr pam 8 322.It Pa sys/ 323system C include files (kernel data structures) 324.\" .It Pa tcl/ 325.\" Tcl language; 326.\" see 327.\" .Xr Tcl n 328.\" .Bl -tag -width "kerberos5/" -compact 329.\" .It Pa generic/ 330.\" ??? 331.\" .It Pa unix/ 332.\" ??? 333.\" .El 334.It Pa ufs/ 335C include files for UFS (The U-word File System) 336.Bl -tag -width "kerberos5/" -compact 337.It Pa ffs/ 338Fast file system 339.It Pa ufs/ 340UFS file system 341.El 342.It Pa vm/ 343virtual memory; 344see 345.Xr vmstat 8 346.El 347.Pp 348.It Pa lib/ 349shared and archive 350.Xr ar 1 Ns -type 351libraries 352.Pp 353.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 354.It Pa aout/ 355a.out archive libraries 356.It Pa compat/ 357shared libraries for compatibility 358.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 359.It Pa aout/ 360a.out backward compatibility libraries 361.El 362.It Pa debug/ 363standalone debug data for the kernel and base system libraries and binaries 364.It Pa dtrace/ 365DTrace library scripts 366.It Pa engines/ 367OpenSSL (Cryptography/SSL toolkit) dynamically loadable engines 368.El 369.Pp 370.It Pa libdata/ 371miscellaneous utility data files 372.Pp 373.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 374.It Pa gcc/ 375.Xr gcc 1 376configuration data 377.It Pa ldscripts/ 378linker scripts; 379see 380.Xr ld 1 381.El 382.Pp 383.It Pa libexec/ 384system daemons & system utilities (executed by other programs) 385.Pp 386.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 387.It Pa aout/ 388utilities to manipulate a.out executables 389.It Pa elf/ 390utilities to manipulate ELF executables 391.It Pa lpr/ 392utilities and filters for LP print system; 393see 394.Xr lpr 1 395.It Pa sendmail/ 396the 397.Xr sendmail 8 398binary; 399see 400.Xr mailwrapper 8 401.It Pa sm.bin/ 402restricted shell for 403.Xr sendmail 8 ; 404see 405.Xr smrsh 8 406.El 407.Pp 408.It Pa local/ 409local executables, libraries, etc. 410Also used as the default destination for the 411.Xr ports 7 412framework. 413Within 414.Pa local/ , 415the general layout sketched out by 416.Nm 417for 418.Pa /usr 419should be used. 420Exceptions are the 421.Pa man 422directory 423.Po directly under 424.Pa local/ 425rather than under 426.Pa local/share/ Ns Pc , 427ports documentation 428.Po in 429.Pa share/doc/<port>/ Ns Pc , 430and 431.Pa /usr/local/etc 432.Po mimics 433.Pa /etc Ns Pc . 434.It Pa obj/ 435architecture-specific target tree produced by building the 436.Pa /usr/src 437tree 438.It Pa ports/ 439.Xr ports 7 , 440the 441.Fx 442ports collection. 443.It Pa sbin/ 444system daemons & system utilities (executed by users) 445.It Pa share/ 446architecture-independent files 447.Pp 448.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 449.It Pa calendar/ 450a variety of pre-fab calendar files; 451see 452.Xr calendar 1 453.It Pa dict/ 454word lists; 455see 456.Xr look 1 457.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 458.It Pa freebsd 459.Fx Ns -specific 460terms, proper names, and jargon 461.It Pa web2 462words from Webster's 2nd International 463.El 464.It Pa doc/ 465miscellaneous documentation; 466source for most of the printed 467.Bx 468manuals (available 469from the 470.Tn USENIX 471association) 472.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 473.It Pa FAQ/ 474Frequently Asked Questions 475.It Pa IPv6/ 476implementation notes for IPv6 477.It Pa es/ 478Spanish translations of documents in /usr/share/doc 479.It Pa handbook/ 480.Fx 481Handbook 482.It Pa ja/ 483Japanese translations of documents in /usr/share/doc 484.It Pa legal/ 485License files for vendor supplied firmware files 486.It Pa ncurses/ 487HTML documents pertaining to ncurses; 488see 489.Xr ncurses 3 490.It Pa ntp/ 491HTML documents pertaining to the Network Time Protocol 492.It Pa ru/ 493Russian translations of documents in /usr/share/doc 494.It Pa tutorials/ 495.Fx 496tutorials 497.It Pa zh/ 498Chinese translations of documents in /usr/share/doc 499.El 500.It Pa examples/ 501various examples for users and programmers 502.It Pa firmware/ 503firmware images loaded by userland programs 504.It Pa games/ 505ASCII text files used by various games 506.It Pa keys/ 507known trusted and revoked keys. 508.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 509.It Pa pkg/ 510fingerprints for 511.Xr pkg 7 512and 513.Xr pkg 8 514.El 515.It Pa locale/ 516localization files; 517see 518.Xr setlocale 3 519.It Pa man/ 520manual pages 521.It Pa misc/ 522miscellaneous system-wide ASCII text files 523.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 524.It Pa fonts/ 525??? 526.It Pa termcap 527terminal characteristics database; 528see 529.Xr termcap 5 530.El 531.It Pa mk/ 532templates for make; 533see 534.Xr make 1 535.It Pa nls/ 536national language support files 537.It Pa security/ 538data files for security policies such as 539.Xr mac_lomac 4 540.It Pa sendmail/ 541.Xr sendmail 8 542configuration files 543.It Pa skel/ 544example 545.Pa .\& 546(dot) files for new accounts 547.It Pa snmp/ 548MIBs, example files and tree definitions for the SNMP daemon. 549.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 550.It Pa defs/ 551tree definition files for use with 552.Xr gensnmptree 1 553.It Pa mibs/ 554MIB files 555.El 556.It Pa syscons/ 557files used by syscons; 558see 559.Xr syscons 4 560.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 561.It Pa fonts/ 562console fonts; 563see 564.Xr vidcontrol 1 565and 566.Xr vidfont 1 567.It Pa keymaps/ 568console keyboard maps; 569see 570.Xr kbdcontrol 1 571and 572.Xr kbdmap 1 573.It Pa scrnmaps/ 574console screen maps 575.El 576.It Pa tabset/ 577tab description files for a variety of terminals; used in 578the termcap file; 579see 580.Xr termcap 5 581.It Pa vi/ 582localization support and utilities for 583.Xr vi 1 584.It Pa vt/ 585files used by vt; 586see 587.Xr vt 4 588.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 589.It Pa fonts/ 590console fonts; 591see 592.Xr vidcontrol 1 593and 594.Xr vidfont 1 595.It Pa keymaps/ 596console keyboard maps; 597see 598.Xr kbdcontrol 1 599and 600.Xr kbdmap 1 601.\" .It Pa scrnmaps/ 602.\" console screen maps 603.El 604.It Pa zoneinfo/ 605timezone configuration information; 606see 607.Xr tzfile 5 608.El 609.Pp 610.It Pa src/ 611.Bx , 612third-party, and/or local source files 613.Pp 614.Bl -tag -width "kerberos5/" -compact 615.It Pa bin/ 616source code for files in /bin 617.It Pa cddl/ 618utilities covered by the Common Development and Distribution License 619.It Pa contrib/ 620source code for contributed software 621.It Pa crypto/ 622source code for contributed cryptography software 623.It Pa etc/ 624source code for files in 625.Pa /etc 626.It Pa gnu/ 627utilities covered by the GNU General Public License 628.It Pa include/ 629source code for files in 630.Pa /usr/include 631.It Pa kerberos5/ 632build infrastructure for Kerberos version 5 633.It Pa lib/ 634source code for files in 635.Pa /lib 636and 637.Pa /usr/lib 638.It Pa libexec/ 639source code for files in 640.Pa /usr/libexec 641.It Pa release/ 642files required to produce a 643.Fx 644release 645.It Pa rescue/ 646source code for files in 647.Pa /rescue 648.It Pa sbin/ 649source code for files in 650.Pa /sbin 651.It Pa secure/ 652build directory for files in 653.Pa /usr/src/crypto 654.It Pa share/ 655source for files in 656.Pa /usr/share 657.It Pa stand/ 658boot loader source code 659.It Pa sys/ 660kernel source code 661.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 662.It Pa amd64/ 663AMD64 architecture support 664.It Pa arm/ 665ARM architecture support 666.It Pa arm64/ 667ARMv8 architecture support 668.It Pa cam/ 669.Xr cam 4 670and 671.Xr ctl 4 672.It Pa cddl/ 673CDDL-licensed optional sources, including ZFS 674and DTrace 675.It Pa ddb/ 676.Xr ddb 4 677.It Pa fs/ 678most filesystems 679.It Pa dev/ 680device drivers 681.It Pa geom/ 682.Xr geom 4 683.It Pa i386/ 684i386 (32 bit) architecture support 685.It Pa kern/ 686main part of the kernel 687.It Pa mips/ 688MIPS architecture support 689.It Pa net80211/ 690.Xr net80211 4 691.It Pa netgraph/ 692.Xr netgraph 4 693.It Pa netinet/ 694.Xr inet 4 695.It Pa netinet6/ 696.Xr inet6 4 697.It Pa netipsec/ 698.Xr ipsec 4 699.It Pa netpfil/ 700.Xr ipfw 4 701and 702.Xr pf 4 703.It Pa opencrypto/ 704.Xr crypto 7 705.It Pa powerpc/ 706PowerPC/POWER architecture support 707.It Pa riscv/ 708RISC-V architecture support 709.It Pa security/ 710.Xr audit 4 711and 712.Xr mac 4 713.It Pa sparc64/ 714SPARC64 architecture support 715.It Pa sys/ 716kernel headers 717.It Pa ufs/ 718Unix File System 719.It Pa x86/ 720code shared by AMD64 and i386 architectures 721.El 722.It Pa targets/ 723support for experimental DIRDEPS_BUILD 724.It Pa tests/ 725source code for files in 726.Pa /usr/tests 727.It Pa tools/ 728tools used for maintenance and testing of 729.Fx 730.It Pa usr.bin/ 731source code for files in 732.Pa /usr/bin 733.It Pa usr.sbin/ 734source code for files in 735.Pa /usr/sbin 736.El 737.Pp 738.It Pa tests/ 739The 740.Fx 741test suite. 742See 743.Xr tests 7 744for more details. 745.El 746.It Pa /var/ 747multi-purpose log, temporary, transient, and spool files 748.Pp 749.Bl -tag -width "defaults/" -compact 750.It Pa account/ 751system accounting files 752.Pp 753.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 754.It Pa acct 755execution accounting file; 756see 757.Xr acct 5 758.El 759.Pp 760.It Pa at/ 761timed command scheduling files; 762see 763.Xr \&at 1 764.Pp 765.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 766.It Pa jobs/ 767directory containing job files 768.It Pa spool/ 769directory containing output spool files 770.El 771.Pp 772.It Pa backups/ 773miscellaneous backup files 774.It Pa cache/ 775miscellaneous cached files 776.Pp 777.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 778.It Pa pkg/ 779cached packages for 780.Xr pkg 8 781.El 782.Pp 783.It Pa crash/ 784default directory to store kernel crash dumps; see 785.Xr crash 8 786and 787.Xr savecore 8 788.It Pa cron/ 789files used by cron; 790see 791.Xr cron 8 792.Pp 793.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 794.It Pa tabs/ 795crontab files; 796see 797.Xr crontab 5 798.El 799.Pp 800.It Pa db/ 801miscellaneous automatically generated system-specific database files 802.It Pa empty/ 803empty directory for use by programs that need a specifically empty directory. 804Used for instance by 805.Xr sshd 8 806for privilege separation. 807.It Pa games/ 808miscellaneous game status and score files 809.It Pa heimdal/ 810Kerberos server databases; see 811.Xr kdc 8 812.It Pa log/ 813miscellaneous system log files 814.Pp 815.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 816.It Pa utx.lastlogin 817last login log; 818see 819.Xr getutxent 3 820.It Pa utx.log 821login/logout log; 822see 823.Xr getutxent 3 824.El 825.Pp 826.It Pa mail/ 827user mailbox files 828.It Pa msgs/ 829system messages database; 830see 831.Xr msgs 1 832.It Pa preserve/ 833temporary home of files preserved after an accidental death 834of an editor; 835see 836.Xr \&ex 1 837.It Pa quotas/ 838file system quota information files 839.It Pa run/ 840system information files describing various info about 841system since it was booted 842.Pp 843.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 844.It Pa ppp/ 845writable by the 846.Dq network 847group for command connection sockets; see 848.Xr ppp 8 849.It Pa utx.active 850database of current users; 851see 852.Xr getutxent 3 853.El 854.Pp 855.It Pa rwho/ 856rwho data files; 857see 858.Xr rwhod 8 , 859.Xr rwho 1 , 860and 861.Xr ruptime 1 862.It Pa spool/ 863miscellaneous printer and mail system spooling directories 864.Pp 865.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 866.It Pa clientmqueue/ 867undelivered submission mail queue; 868see 869.Xr sendmail 8 870.It Pa ftp/ 871commonly ~ftp; the anonymous ftp root directory 872.It Pa mqueue/ 873undelivered mail queue; 874see 875.Xr sendmail 8 876.It Pa output/ 877line printer spooling directories 878.El 879.Pp 880.It Pa tmp/ 881temporary files that are kept between system reboots 882.Pp 883.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 884.It Pa vi.recover/ 885the directory where recovery files are stored 886.El 887.Pp 888.It Pa yp/ 889the NIS maps 890.El 891.El 892.Sh NOTES 893This manual page documents the default 894.Fx 895file system layout, but 896the actual hierarchy on a given system is defined at the system 897administrator's discretion. 898A well-maintained installation will include a customized version of 899this document. 900.Sh SEE ALSO 901.Xr apropos 1 , 902.Xr find 1 , 903.Xr finger 1 , 904.Xr grep 1 , 905.Xr ls 1 , 906.Xr whatis 1 , 907.Xr whereis 1 , 908.Xr which 1 , 909.Xr fd 4 , 910.Xr devfs 5 , 911.Xr fsck 8 912.Sh HISTORY 913A 914.Nm 915manual page appeared in 916.At v7 . 917