man/man7/hier.7

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.\"	@(#)hier.7	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/5/93
.\" $FreeBSD$
.\"
.Dd May 30, 2023
.Dt HIER 7
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm hier
.Nd layout of file systems
.Sh SYNOPSIS
A sketch of the file system hierarchy.
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Bl -tag -width "/libexec/"
.It Pa /
root directory of the file system
.It Pa /bin/
user utilities fundamental to both single-user and multi-user environments
.It Pa /boot/
programs and configuration files used during operating system bootstrap
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "defaults/" -compact
.It Pa defaults/
default bootstrapping configuration files; see
.Xr loader.conf 5
.It Pa dtb/
Compiled flattened device tree (FDT) files; see
.Xr fdt 4
and
.Xr dtc 1
.It Pa efi/
Mount point for EFI System Partition (ESP) on UEFI systems
.It Pa firmware/
loadable kernel modules containing binary firmware for hardware that needs
firmware downloaded to it to function
.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 the ones installed from
.Xr ports 7
.It Pa overlays/
Compiled flattened device tree (FDT) overlays; see
.Xr fdt 4
and
.Xr dtc 1
.It Pa zfs/
.Xr zfs 8
zpool cache files
.El
.It Pa /compat/
normally a link to
.Pa /usr/compat .
If not, then the
.Pa /usr/compat
comments apply
.It Pa /dev/
device special files managed by
.Xr devfs 5
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "defaults/" -compact
.It Pa fd/
file descriptor files;
see
.Xr fd 4
.El
.It Pa /etc/
system configuration files and scripts
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "defaults/" -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/
Sendmail control files
.It Pa mtree/
mtree configuration files;
see
.Xr mtree 8
.It Pa pam.d/
configuration files for the Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM)
library
.It Pa periodic/
scripts that are run daily, weekly, and monthly, via
.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;
the layout is not standardized, but a typical interactive user
.Dv beastie
might receive their own directory
.Pa /home/beastie
.It Pa /lib/
critical system libraries needed for binaries in
.Pa /bin
and
.Pa /sbin
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "defaults/" -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/
critical system utilities needed for binaries in
.Pa /bin
and
.Pa /sbin
.It Pa /media/
contains subdirectories to be used as mount points
for removable media such as CDs, USB drives, and
floppy disks
.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/
root's HOME directory
.It Pa /sbin/
system programs and administration utilities
fundamental to both single-user and multi-user environments
.It Pa /tmp/
temporary files that are not guaranteed to persist across system reboots
.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 compat/
files needed to support binary compatibility with other operating systems;
see
.Xr linux 4
.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
.Pp
.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 & system utilities (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 & system utilities (executed by users)
.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 dict/
word lists;
see
.Xr look 1
.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
.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/
ASCII text files used by various games
.It Pa keys/
known trusted and revoked keys
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa pkg/
fingerprints for
.Xr pkg 7
and
.Xr pkg 8
.El
.It Pa locale/
localization files;
see
.Xr setlocale 3
.It Pa man/
manual pages
.It Pa misc/
miscellaneous system-wide ASCII text files
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa fonts/
???
.It Pa termcap
terminal characteristics database;
see
.Xr termcap 5
.El
.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
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa defs/
tree definition files for use with
.Xr gensnmptree 1
.It Pa mibs/
MIB files
.El
.It Pa syscons/
files used by syscons;
see
.Xr syscons 4
.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
.It Pa sysroot/
files necessary for the -sysroot compiler/linker argument to build non-native
binaries.
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa VERSION/
files for
.Fx
release VERSION.
By convention,
.Dq VERSION
matches
.Xr uname 1
.Fl r .
.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
.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 vt;
see
.Xr vt 4
.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
.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/
multi-purpose log, temporary, transient, and spool files
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width "defaults/" -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/
directory containing job files
.It Pa spool/
directory containing output spool files
.El
.Pp
.It Pa backups/
miscellaneous backup files
.It Pa cache/
miscellaneous cached files
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa pkg/
cached packages for
.Xr pkg 8
.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 Fl -compact
.It Pa tabs/
crontab files;
see
.Xr crontab 5
.El
.Pp
.It Pa db/
miscellaneous automatically generated system-specific database files
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa freebsd-update/
.Xr freebsd-update 8
work directory for temporary files and downloaded updates
.El
.It Pa empty/
empty directory for use by programs that need a specifically empty directory.
Used for instance by
.Xr sshd 8
for privilege separation
.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 Fl -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/
temporary home of files preserved after an accidental death
of an editor;
see
.Xr ex 1
.It Pa quotas/
file system quota information files
.It Pa run/
system information files describing various info about
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 Fl -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 kept between system reboots
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa vi.recover/
the directory where recovery files are stored
.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, but
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 .