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 December 11, 2021 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 efi/ 57Mount point for EFI System Partition (ESP) on UEFI systems 58.It Pa firmware/ 59loadable kernel modules containing binary firmware for hardware that needs 60firmware downloaded to it to function 61.It Pa kernel/ 62pure kernel executable (the operating system loaded into memory 63at boot time) and kernel modules 64.It Pa modules/ 65third-party loadable kernel modules, such as the ones installed from 66.Xr ports 7 67.It Pa overlays/ 68Compiled flattened device tree (FDT) overlays; see 69.Xr fdt 4 70and 71.Xr dtc 1 72.It Pa zfs/ 73.Xr zfs 8 74zpool cache files 75.El 76.It Pa /cdrom/ 77default mount point for CD-ROM drives 78.It Pa /compat/ 79normally a link to 80.Pa /usr/compat . 81If not, then the 82.Pa /usr/compat 83comments apply 84.It Pa /dev/ 85device special files managed by 86.Xr devfs 5 87.Pp 88.Bl -tag -width "defaults/" -compact 89.It Pa fd/ 90file descriptor files; 91see 92.Xr \&fd 4 93.El 94.It Pa /etc/ 95system configuration files and scripts 96.Pp 97.Bl -tag -width "defaults/" -compact 98.It Pa defaults/ 99default system configuration files; 100see 101.Xr rc 8 102.It Pa bluetooth/ 103bluetooth configuration files 104.It Pa localtime 105local timezone information; 106see 107.Xr ctime 3 108.It Pa mail/ 109Sendmail control files 110.It Pa mtree/ 111mtree configuration files; 112see 113.Xr mtree 8 114.It Pa pam.d/ 115configuration files for the Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) 116library 117.It Pa periodic/ 118scripts that are run daily, weekly, and monthly, via 119.Xr cron 8 ; 120see 121.Xr periodic 8 122.It Pa rc.d/ 123system and daemon startup/control scripts; 124see 125.Xr rc 8 126.It Pa security/ 127OpenBSM audit configuration files; 128see 129.Xr audit 8 130.It Pa ppp/ 131ppp configuration files; 132see 133.Xr ppp 8 134.It Pa ssh/ 135OpenSSH configuration files; 136see 137.Xr ssh 1 138.It Pa ssl/ 139OpenSSL configuration files 140.El 141.It Pa /lib/ 142critical system libraries needed for binaries in 143.Pa /bin 144and 145.Pa /sbin 146.Pp 147.Bl -tag -width "defaults/" -compact 148.It Pa casper/ 149service-specific 150.Xr libcasper 3 151Capsicum support libraries 152.It Pa geom/ 153class-specific libraries for the 154.Xr geom 8 155utility 156.It Pa nvmecontrol/ 157vendor-specific libraries to extend the 158.Xr nvmecontrol 8 159utility 160.El 161.It Pa /libexec/ 162critical system utilities needed for binaries in 163.Pa /bin 164and 165.Pa /sbin 166.It Pa /media/ 167contains subdirectories to be used as mount points 168for removable media such as CDs, USB drives, and 169floppy disks 170.It Pa /mnt/ 171empty directory commonly used by 172system administrators as a temporary mount point 173.It Pa /net/ 174automounted NFS shares; 175see 176.Xr auto_master 5 177.It Pa /proc/ 178process file system; 179see 180.Xr procfs 5 181.It Pa /rescue/ 182statically linked programs for emergency recovery; 183see 184.Xr rescue 8 185.It Pa /root/ 186root's HOME directory 187.It Pa /sbin/ 188system programs and administration utilities 189fundamental to both single-user and multi-user environments 190.It Pa /tmp/ 191temporary files that are not guaranteed to persist across system reboots 192.It Pa /usr/ 193contains the majority of user utilities and applications 194.Pp 195.Bl -tag -width "defaults/" -compact 196.It Pa bin/ 197common utilities, programming tools, and applications 198.It Pa compat/ 199files needed to support binary compatibility with other operating systems; 200see 201.Xr linux 4 202.It Pa include/ 203standard C include files 204.Pp 205.Bl -tag -width "kerberos5/" -compact 206.It Pa arpa/ 207C include files for Internet service protocols 208.It Pa bsnmp/ 209C include files for the SNMP daemon 210.It Pa c++/ 211C++ include files 212.It Pa cam/ 213C include files for the Common Access Methods Layer 214.Bl -tag -width "kerberos5/" -compact 215.It Pa scsi/ 216SCSI device on top of CAM 217.El 218.It Pa dev/ 219C include files for programming various 220.Fx 221devices 222.Bl -tag -width "kerberos5/" -compact 223.It Pa ic/ 224various header files describing driver- and bus-independent 225hardware circuits 226.It Pa ofw/ 227Open Firmware support 228.It Pa pbio/ 2298255 PPI cards; 230see 231.Xr pbio 4 232.It Pa ppbus/ 233parallel port bus; 234see 235.Xr ppbus 4 236.It Pa usb/ 237USB subsystem 238.El 239.It Pa fs/ 240.Bl -tag -width "kerberos5/" -compact 241.It Pa fdescfs/ 242per-process file descriptors file system 243.It Pa msdosfs/ 244MS-DOS file system 245.It Pa nfs/ 246C include files for NFS (Network File System) version 2, 3 and 4 247.It Pa nullfs/ 248loopback file system 249.It Pa procfs/ 250process file system 251.It Pa smbfs/ 252SMB/CIFS file system 253.It Pa udf/ 254UDF file system 255.It Pa unionfs 256union file system 257.El 258.It Pa geom/ 259GEOM framework 260.Bl -tag -width "kerberos5/" -compact 261.It Pa concat/ 262CONCAT GEOM class 263.It Pa gate/ 264GATE GEOM class 265.It Pa mirror/ 266MIRROR GEOM class 267.It Pa nop/ 268NOP GEOM class 269.It Pa raid3/ 270RAID3 GEOM class 271.It Pa stripe/ 272STRIPE GEOM class 273.El 274.It Pa libmilter/ 275C include files for libmilter, 276the 277.Xr sendmail 8 278mail filter API 279.It Pa machine/ 280machine-specific C include files 281.It Pa net/ 282miscellaneous network C include files 283.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 284.It Pa altq/ 285C include files for alternate packet queueing; see 286.Xr altq 4 287.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 421ports documentation 422.Po in 423.Pa share/doc/<port>/ Ns Pc , 424and 425.Pa /usr/local/etc 426.Po mimics 427.Pa /etc Ns Pc . 428.It Pa obj/ 429architecture-specific target tree produced by building the 430.Pa /usr/src 431tree 432.It Pa ports/ 433.Fx 434ports collection; see 435.Xr ports 7 436.It Pa sbin/ 437system daemons & system utilities (executed by users) 438.It Pa share/ 439architecture-independent files 440.Pp 441.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 442.It Pa calendar/ 443a variety of pre-fab calendar files; 444see 445.Xr calendar 1 446.It Pa dict/ 447word lists; 448see 449.Xr look 1 450.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 451.It Pa freebsd 452.Fx Ns -specific 453terms, proper names, and jargon 454.It Pa web2 455words from Webster's 2nd International 456.El 457.It Pa doc/ 458miscellaneous documentation; 459source for most of the printed 460.Bx 461manuals (available 462from the 463.Tn USENIX 464association) 465.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 466.It Pa FAQ/ 467Frequently Asked Questions 468.It Pa IPv6/ 469implementation notes for IPv6 470.It Pa es/ 471Spanish translations of documents in /usr/share/doc 472.It Pa handbook/ 473.Fx 474Handbook 475.It Pa ja/ 476Japanese translations of documents in /usr/share/doc 477.It Pa legal/ 478License files for vendor supplied firmware files 479.It Pa ncurses/ 480HTML documents pertaining to ncurses; 481see 482.Xr ncurses 3 483.It Pa ntp/ 484HTML documents pertaining to the Network Time Protocol 485.It Pa ru/ 486Russian translations of documents in /usr/share/doc 487.It Pa tutorials/ 488.Fx 489tutorials 490.It Pa zh/ 491Chinese translations of documents in /usr/share/doc 492.El 493.It Pa examples/ 494various examples for users and programmers 495.It Pa firmware/ 496firmware images loaded by userland programs 497.It Pa games/ 498ASCII text files used by various games 499.It Pa keys/ 500known trusted and revoked keys 501.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 502.It Pa pkg/ 503fingerprints for 504.Xr pkg 7 505and 506.Xr pkg 8 507.El 508.It Pa locale/ 509localization files; 510see 511.Xr setlocale 3 512.It Pa man/ 513manual pages 514.It Pa misc/ 515miscellaneous system-wide ASCII text files 516.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 517.It Pa fonts/ 518??? 519.It Pa termcap 520terminal characteristics database; 521see 522.Xr termcap 5 523.El 524.It Pa mk/ 525templates for make; 526see 527.Xr make 1 528.It Pa nls/ 529national language support files 530.It Pa security/ 531data files for security policies such as 532.Xr mac_lomac 4 533.It Pa sendmail/ 534.Xr sendmail 8 535configuration files 536.It Pa skel/ 537example 538.Pa .\& 539(dot) files for new accounts 540.It Pa snmp/ 541MIBs, example files and tree definitions for the SNMP daemon 542.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 543.It Pa defs/ 544tree definition files for use with 545.Xr gensnmptree 1 546.It Pa mibs/ 547MIB files 548.El 549.It Pa syscons/ 550files used by syscons; 551see 552.Xr syscons 4 553.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 554.It Pa fonts/ 555console fonts; 556see 557.Xr vidcontrol 1 558and 559.Xr vidfont 1 560.It Pa keymaps/ 561console keyboard maps; 562see 563.Xr kbdcontrol 1 564and 565.Xr kbdmap 1 566.It Pa scrnmaps/ 567console screen maps 568.El 569.It Pa tabset/ 570tab description files for a variety of terminals; used in 571the termcap file; 572see 573.Xr termcap 5 574.It Pa vi/ 575localization support and utilities for 576.Xr vi 1 577.It Pa vt/ 578files used by vt; 579see 580.Xr vt 4 581.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 582.It Pa fonts/ 583console fonts; 584see 585.Xr vidcontrol 1 586and 587.Xr vidfont 1 588.It Pa keymaps/ 589console keyboard maps; 590see 591.Xr kbdcontrol 1 592and 593.Xr kbdmap 1 594.\" .It Pa scrnmaps/ 595.\" console screen maps 596.El 597.It Pa zoneinfo/ 598timezone configuration information; 599see 600.Xr tzfile 5 601.El 602.Pp 603.It Pa src/ 604.Fx 605source code; see 606.Xr development 7 607.Pp 608.Bl -tag -width "kerberos5/" -compact 609.It Pa bin/ 610source code for files in /bin 611.It Pa cddl/ 612utilities covered by the Common Development and Distribution License 613.It Pa contrib/ 614source code for contributed software 615.It Pa crypto/ 616source code for contributed cryptography software 617.It Pa etc/ 618source code for files in 619.Pa /etc 620.It Pa gnu/ 621utilities covered by the GNU General Public License 622.It Pa include/ 623source code for files in 624.Pa /usr/include 625.It Pa kerberos5/ 626build infrastructure for Kerberos version 5 627.It Pa lib/ 628source code for files in 629.Pa /lib 630and 631.Pa /usr/lib 632.It Pa libexec/ 633source code for files in 634.Pa /usr/libexec 635.It Pa release/ 636files required to produce a 637.Fx 638release 639.It Pa rescue/ 640source code for files in 641.Pa /rescue 642.It Pa sbin/ 643source code for files in 644.Pa /sbin 645.It Pa secure/ 646build directory for files in 647.Pa /usr/src/crypto 648.It Pa share/ 649source for files in 650.Pa /usr/share 651.It Pa stand/ 652boot loader source code 653.It Pa sys/ 654kernel source code 655.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 656.It Pa amd64/ 657AMD64 architecture support 658.It Pa arm/ 659ARM architecture support 660.It Pa arm64/ 661ARMv8 architecture support 662.It Pa cam/ 663.Xr cam 4 664and 665.Xr ctl 4 666.It Pa cddl/ 667CDDL-licensed optional sources, including ZFS 668and DTrace 669.It Pa ddb/ 670.Xr ddb 4 671.It Pa fs/ 672most filesystems 673.It Pa dev/ 674device drivers 675.It Pa geom/ 676.Xr geom 4 677.It Pa i386/ 678i386 (32 bit) architecture support 679.It Pa kern/ 680main part of the kernel 681.It Pa net80211/ 682.Xr net80211 4 683.It Pa netgraph/ 684.Xr netgraph 4 685.It Pa netinet/ 686.Xr inet 4 687.It Pa netinet6/ 688.Xr inet6 4 689.It Pa netipsec/ 690.Xr ipsec 4 691.It Pa netpfil/ 692.Xr ipfw 4 693and 694.Xr pf 4 695.It Pa opencrypto/ 696.Xr crypto 7 697.It Pa powerpc/ 698PowerPC/POWER architecture support 699.It Pa riscv/ 700RISC-V architecture support 701.It Pa security/ 702.Xr audit 4 703and 704.Xr mac 4 705.It Pa sys/ 706kernel headers 707.It Pa ufs/ 708Unix File System 709.It Pa x86/ 710code shared by AMD64 and i386 architectures 711.El 712.It Pa targets/ 713support for experimental DIRDEPS_BUILD 714.It Pa tests/ 715source code for files in 716.Pa /usr/tests 717.It Pa tools/ 718tools used for maintenance and testing of 719.Fx 720.It Pa usr.bin/ 721source code for files in 722.Pa /usr/bin 723.It Pa usr.sbin/ 724source code for files in 725.Pa /usr/sbin 726.El 727.Pp 728.It Pa tests/ 729The 730.Fx 731test suite; see 732.Xr tests 7 733.El 734.It Pa /var/ 735multi-purpose log, temporary, transient, and spool files 736.Pp 737.Bl -tag -width "defaults/" -compact 738.It Pa account/ 739system accounting files 740.Pp 741.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 742.It Pa acct 743execution accounting file; 744see 745.Xr acct 5 746.El 747.Pp 748.It Pa at/ 749timed command scheduling files; 750see 751.Xr \&at 1 752.Pp 753.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 754.It Pa jobs/ 755directory containing job files 756.It Pa spool/ 757directory containing output spool files 758.El 759.Pp 760.It Pa backups/ 761miscellaneous backup files 762.It Pa cache/ 763miscellaneous cached files 764.Pp 765.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 766.It Pa pkg/ 767cached packages for 768.Xr pkg 8 769.El 770.Pp 771.It Pa crash/ 772default directory to store kernel crash dumps; see 773.Xr crash 8 774and 775.Xr savecore 8 776.It Pa cron/ 777files used by cron; 778see 779.Xr cron 8 780.Pp 781.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 782.It Pa tabs/ 783crontab files; 784see 785.Xr crontab 5 786.El 787.Pp 788.It Pa db/ 789miscellaneous automatically generated system-specific database files 790.It Pa empty/ 791empty directory for use by programs that need a specifically empty directory. 792Used for instance by 793.Xr sshd 8 794for privilege separation 795.It Pa games/ 796miscellaneous game status and score files 797.It Pa heimdal/ 798Kerberos server databases; see 799.Xr kdc 8 800.It Pa log/ 801miscellaneous system log files 802.Pp 803.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 804.It Pa utx.lastlogin 805last login log; 806see 807.Xr getutxent 3 808.It Pa utx.log 809login/logout log; 810see 811.Xr getutxent 3 812.El 813.Pp 814.It Pa mail/ 815user mailbox files 816.It Pa msgs/ 817system messages database; 818see 819.Xr msgs 1 820.It Pa preserve/ 821temporary home of files preserved after an accidental death 822of an editor; 823see 824.Xr \&ex 1 825.It Pa quotas/ 826file system quota information files 827.It Pa run/ 828system information files describing various info about 829system since it was booted 830.Pp 831.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 832.It Pa bhyve/ 833bhyve vm unix domain sockets 834.It Pa ppp/ 835writable by the 836.Dq network 837group for command connection sockets; see 838.Xr ppp 8 839.It Pa utx.active 840database of current users; 841see 842.Xr getutxent 3 843.El 844.Pp 845.It Pa rwho/ 846rwho data files; 847see 848.Xr rwhod 8 , 849.Xr rwho 1 , 850and 851.Xr ruptime 1 852.It Pa spool/ 853miscellaneous printer and mail system spooling directories 854.Pp 855.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 856.It Pa clientmqueue/ 857undelivered submission mail queue; 858see 859.Xr sendmail 8 860.It Pa ftp/ 861commonly ~ftp; the anonymous ftp root directory 862.It Pa mqueue/ 863undelivered mail queue; 864see 865.Xr sendmail 8 866.It Pa output/ 867line printer spooling directories 868.El 869.Pp 870.It Pa tmp/ 871temporary files that are kept between system reboots 872.Pp 873.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 874.It Pa vi.recover/ 875the directory where recovery files are stored 876.El 877.Pp 878.It Pa yp/ 879the NIS maps; see 880.Xr yp 8 881.El 882.El 883.Sh NOTES 884This manual page documents the default 885.Fx 886file system layout, but 887the actual hierarchy on a given system is defined at the system 888administrator's discretion. 889A well-maintained installation will include a customized version of 890this document. 891.Sh SEE ALSO 892.Xr apropos 1 , 893.Xr find 1 , 894.Xr grep 1 , 895.Xr ls 1 , 896.Xr whereis 1 , 897.Xr which 1 898.Sh HISTORY 899A 900.Nm 901manual page appeared in 902.At v7 . 903