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 February 22, 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 queueing 286.El 287.It Pa net80211/ 288C include files for 802.11 wireless networking; 289see 290.Xr net80211 4 291.It Pa netinet/ 292C include files for Internet standard protocols; 293see 294.Xr inet 4 295.It Pa netinet6/ 296C include files for Internet protocol version 6; 297see 298.Xr inet6 4 299.It Pa netipsec/ 300kernel key-management service; 301see 302.Xr ipsec 4 303.It Pa netsmb/ 304SMB/CIFS requester 305.It Pa nfs/ 306C include files for NFS (Network File System) version 2 and 3 (legacy) 307.It Pa openssl/ 308OpenSSL (Cryptography/SSL toolkit) headers 309.It Pa protocols/ 310C include files for Berkeley service protocols 311.It Pa rpc/ 312remote procedure calls; 313see 314.Xr rpc 3 315.It Pa rpcsvc/ 316definition of RPC service structures; see 317.Xr rpc 3 318.It Pa security/ 319PAM; see 320.Xr pam 8 321.It Pa sys/ 322system C include files (kernel data structures) 323.\" .It Pa tcl/ 324.\" Tcl language; 325.\" see 326.\" .Xr Tcl n 327.\" .Bl -tag -width "kerberos5/" -compact 328.\" .It Pa generic/ 329.\" ??? 330.\" .It Pa unix/ 331.\" ??? 332.\" .El 333.It Pa ufs/ 334C include files for UFS (The U-word File System) 335.Bl -tag -width "kerberos5/" -compact 336.It Pa ffs/ 337Fast file system 338.It Pa ufs/ 339UFS file system 340.El 341.It Pa vm/ 342virtual memory; 343see 344.Xr vmstat 8 345.El 346.Pp 347.It Pa lib/ 348shared and archive 349.Xr ar 1 Ns -type 350libraries 351.Pp 352.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 353.It Pa aout/ 354a.out archive libraries 355.It Pa compat/ 356shared libraries for compatibility 357.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 358.It Pa aout/ 359a.out backward compatibility libraries 360.El 361.It Pa debug/ 362standalone debug data for the kernel and base system libraries and binaries 363.It Pa dtrace/ 364DTrace library scripts 365.It Pa engines/ 366OpenSSL (Cryptography/SSL toolkit) dynamically loadable engines 367.El 368.Pp 369.It Pa libdata/ 370miscellaneous utility data files 371.Pp 372.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 373.It Pa gcc/ 374.Xr gcc 1 375configuration data 376.It Pa ldscripts/ 377linker scripts; 378see 379.Xr ld 1 380.El 381.Pp 382.It Pa libexec/ 383system daemons & system utilities (executed by other programs) 384.Pp 385.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 386.It Pa aout/ 387utilities to manipulate a.out executables 388.It Pa elf/ 389utilities to manipulate ELF executables 390.It Pa lpr/ 391utilities and filters for LP print system; 392see 393.Xr lpr 1 394.It Pa sendmail/ 395the 396.Xr sendmail 8 397binary; 398see 399.Xr mailwrapper 8 400.It Pa sm.bin/ 401restricted shell for 402.Xr sendmail 8 ; 403see 404.Xr smrsh 8 405.El 406.Pp 407.It Pa local/ 408local executables, libraries, etc. 409Also used as the default destination for the 410.Xr ports 7 411framework. 412Within 413.Pa local/ , 414the general layout sketched out by 415.Nm 416for 417.Pa /usr 418should be used. 419Exceptions are the 420ports documentation 421.Po in 422.Pa share/doc/<port>/ Ns Pc , 423and 424.Pa /usr/local/etc 425.Po mimics 426.Pa /etc Ns Pc . 427.It Pa obj/ 428architecture-specific target tree produced by building the 429.Pa /usr/src 430tree 431.It Pa ports/ 432.Xr ports 7 , 433the 434.Fx 435ports collection 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 606.Pp 607.Bl -tag -width "kerberos5/" -compact 608.It Pa bin/ 609source code for files in /bin 610.It Pa cddl/ 611utilities covered by the Common Development and Distribution License 612.It Pa contrib/ 613source code for contributed software 614.It Pa crypto/ 615source code for contributed cryptography software 616.It Pa etc/ 617source code for files in 618.Pa /etc 619.It Pa gnu/ 620utilities covered by the GNU General Public License 621.It Pa include/ 622source code for files in 623.Pa /usr/include 624.It Pa kerberos5/ 625build infrastructure for Kerberos version 5 626.It Pa lib/ 627source code for files in 628.Pa /lib 629and 630.Pa /usr/lib 631.It Pa libexec/ 632source code for files in 633.Pa /usr/libexec 634.It Pa release/ 635files required to produce a 636.Fx 637release 638.It Pa rescue/ 639source code for files in 640.Pa /rescue 641.It Pa sbin/ 642source code for files in 643.Pa /sbin 644.It Pa secure/ 645build directory for files in 646.Pa /usr/src/crypto 647.It Pa share/ 648source for files in 649.Pa /usr/share 650.It Pa stand/ 651boot loader source code 652.It Pa sys/ 653kernel source code 654.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 655.It Pa amd64/ 656AMD64 architecture support 657.It Pa arm/ 658ARM architecture support 659.It Pa arm64/ 660ARMv8 architecture support 661.It Pa cam/ 662.Xr cam 4 663and 664.Xr ctl 4 665.It Pa cddl/ 666CDDL-licensed optional sources, including ZFS 667and DTrace 668.It Pa ddb/ 669.Xr ddb 4 670.It Pa fs/ 671most filesystems 672.It Pa dev/ 673device drivers 674.It Pa geom/ 675.Xr geom 4 676.It Pa i386/ 677i386 (32 bit) architecture support 678.It Pa kern/ 679main part of the kernel 680.It Pa mips/ 681MIPS architecture support 682.It Pa net80211/ 683.Xr net80211 4 684.It Pa netgraph/ 685.Xr netgraph 4 686.It Pa netinet/ 687.Xr inet 4 688.It Pa netinet6/ 689.Xr inet6 4 690.It Pa netipsec/ 691.Xr ipsec 4 692.It Pa netpfil/ 693.Xr ipfw 4 694and 695.Xr pf 4 696.It Pa opencrypto/ 697.Xr crypto 7 698.It Pa powerpc/ 699PowerPC/POWER architecture support 700.It Pa riscv/ 701RISC-V architecture support 702.It Pa security/ 703.Xr audit 4 704and 705.Xr mac 4 706.It Pa sparc64/ 707SPARC64 architecture support 708.It Pa sys/ 709kernel headers 710.It Pa ufs/ 711Unix File System 712.It Pa x86/ 713code shared by AMD64 and i386 architectures 714.El 715.It Pa targets/ 716support for experimental DIRDEPS_BUILD 717.It Pa tests/ 718source code for files in 719.Pa /usr/tests 720.It Pa tools/ 721tools used for maintenance and testing of 722.Fx 723.It Pa usr.bin/ 724source code for files in 725.Pa /usr/bin 726.It Pa usr.sbin/ 727source code for files in 728.Pa /usr/sbin 729.El 730.Pp 731.It Pa tests/ 732The 733.Fx 734test suite; see 735.Xr tests 7 736.El 737.It Pa /var/ 738multi-purpose log, temporary, transient, and spool files 739.Pp 740.Bl -tag -width "defaults/" -compact 741.It Pa account/ 742system accounting files 743.Pp 744.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 745.It Pa acct 746execution accounting file; 747see 748.Xr acct 5 749.El 750.Pp 751.It Pa at/ 752timed command scheduling files; 753see 754.Xr \&at 1 755.Pp 756.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 757.It Pa jobs/ 758directory containing job files 759.It Pa spool/ 760directory containing output spool files 761.El 762.Pp 763.It Pa backups/ 764miscellaneous backup files 765.It Pa cache/ 766miscellaneous cached files 767.Pp 768.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 769.It Pa pkg/ 770cached packages for 771.Xr pkg 8 772.El 773.Pp 774.It Pa crash/ 775default directory to store kernel crash dumps; see 776.Xr crash 8 777and 778.Xr savecore 8 779.It Pa cron/ 780files used by cron; 781see 782.Xr cron 8 783.Pp 784.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 785.It Pa tabs/ 786crontab files; 787see 788.Xr crontab 5 789.El 790.Pp 791.It Pa db/ 792miscellaneous automatically generated system-specific database files 793.It Pa empty/ 794empty directory for use by programs that need a specifically empty directory. 795Used for instance by 796.Xr sshd 8 797for privilege separation. 798.It Pa games/ 799miscellaneous game status and score files 800.It Pa heimdal/ 801Kerberos server databases; see 802.Xr kdc 8 803.It Pa log/ 804miscellaneous system log files 805.Pp 806.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 807.It Pa utx.lastlogin 808last login log; 809see 810.Xr getutxent 3 811.It Pa utx.log 812login/logout log; 813see 814.Xr getutxent 3 815.El 816.Pp 817.It Pa mail/ 818user mailbox files 819.It Pa msgs/ 820system messages database; 821see 822.Xr msgs 1 823.It Pa preserve/ 824temporary home of files preserved after an accidental death 825of an editor; 826see 827.Xr \&ex 1 828.It Pa quotas/ 829file system quota information files 830.It Pa run/ 831system information files describing various info about 832system since it was booted 833.Pp 834.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 835.It Pa bhyve/ 836bhyve vm unix domain sockets 837.It Pa ppp/ 838writable by the 839.Dq network 840group for command connection sockets; see 841.Xr ppp 8 842.It Pa utx.active 843database of current users; 844see 845.Xr getutxent 3 846.El 847.Pp 848.It Pa rwho/ 849rwho data files; 850see 851.Xr rwhod 8 , 852.Xr rwho 1 , 853and 854.Xr ruptime 1 855.It Pa spool/ 856miscellaneous printer and mail system spooling directories 857.Pp 858.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 859.It Pa clientmqueue/ 860undelivered submission mail queue; 861see 862.Xr sendmail 8 863.It Pa ftp/ 864commonly ~ftp; the anonymous ftp root directory 865.It Pa mqueue/ 866undelivered mail queue; 867see 868.Xr sendmail 8 869.It Pa output/ 870line printer spooling directories 871.El 872.Pp 873.It Pa tmp/ 874temporary files that are kept between system reboots 875.Pp 876.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact 877.It Pa vi.recover/ 878the directory where recovery files are stored 879.El 880.Pp 881.It Pa yp/ 882the NIS maps 883.El 884.El 885.Sh NOTES 886This manual page documents the default 887.Fx 888file system layout, but 889the actual hierarchy on a given system is defined at the system 890administrator's discretion. 891A well-maintained installation will include a customized version of 892this document. 893.Sh SEE ALSO 894.Xr apropos 1 , 895.Xr find 1 , 896.Xr finger 1 , 897.Xr grep 1 , 898.Xr ls 1 , 899.Xr whatis 1 , 900.Xr whereis 1 , 901.Xr which 1 , 902.Xr fd 4 , 903.Xr devfs 5 , 904.Xr fsck 8 905.Sh HISTORY 906A 907.Nm 908manual page appeared in 909.At v7 . 910