Posted 19.02.2006 | Updated 23.05.2006 | Contributed by Andy Mallett
To the Unix neophyte, used to the Windows file system, the file and directory structure of a Unix box can seem perplexing and odd.
One thing to remember is that compared to MS Windows, Unix is rather quirky, for instance in the way that it seems to treat everything as a file. However, herein lies its power and ease of configuration.
The structure of the file system varies slightly from one distribution to another, however there are more similarities than differences.
The structure and function of the FreeBSD file hierarchy is shown by typing the man hier command..
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HIER(7) FreeBSD Miscellaneous Information Manual HIER(7)
NAME
hier -- layout of file systems
DESCRIPTION
A sketch of the file system hierarchy.
/ root directory of the file system
/bin/ user utilities fundamental to both single-user and multi-user
environments
/boot/ programs and configuration files used during operating system
bootstrap
defaults/ default bootstrapping configuration files; see
loader.conf(5)
kernel/ pure kernel executable (the operating system loaded
into memory at boot time).
modules/ third-party loadable kernel modules; see kldstat(8)
/cdrom/ default mount point for CD-ROM drives (created by
sysinstall(8))
/compat/ normally a link to /usr/compat. If not, then the /usr/compat
comments apply (created by sysinstall(8))
/dev/ device special files managed by devfs(5)
fd/ file descriptor files; see fd(4)
net/ network devices
/dist/ mount point used by sysinstall(8)
/etc/ system configuration files and scripts
defaults/ default system configuration files; see rc(8)
gnats/ gnats configuration files; see send-pr(1)
isdn/ isdn4bsd configuration files; see isdnd(8)
localtime local timezone information; see ctime(3)
mail/ Sendmail control files
mtree/ mtree configuration files; see mtree(8)
namedb/ named configuration files; see named(8)
pam.d/ configuration files for the Pluggable Authentica-
tion Modules (PAM) library; see pam(8)
periodic/ scripts that are run daily, weekly, and monthly,
via cron(8); see periodic(8)
ppp/ ppp configuration files; see ppp(8)
ssl/ OpenSSL configuration files
/lib/ critical system libraries needed for binaries in /bin and /sbin
geom/ class-specific libraries for the geom(8) utility
/libexec/ critical system utilities needed for binaries in /bin and /sbin
/mnt/ empty directory commonly used as a temporary mount point
/proc/ process file system; see mount_procfs(8)
/rescue/ statically linked programs for emergency recovery; see rescue(8)
/root/ root's HOME directory
/sbin/ system programs and administration utilities
/stand/ programs used in a standalone environment
/tmp/ temporary files that are not guaranteed to persist across sys-
tem reboots
/usr/ contains the majority of user utilities and applications
bin/ common utilities, programming tools, and applica-
tions
compat/ files needed to support binary compatibility with
other operating systems, such as Linux (created by
sysinstall(8))
games/ useful and semi-frivolous programs
include/ standard C include files
altq/ C include files for alternate queueing
arpa/ C include files for Internet service
protocols
bsnmp/ C include files for the SNMP daemon
c++/ C++ include files
cam/ C include files for the Common Access
Methods Layer
scsi/ The SCSI device on top of
CAM
dev/ C include files for programming various
FreeBSD devices
ic/ Various header files
describing driver- and bus-
independent hardware cir-
cuits
ofw/ Open Firmware support
pbio/ 8255 PPI cards; see pbio(4)
ppbus/ The parallel port bus; see
ppbus(4)
usb/ The USB subsystem
utopia/ Physical chip driver for ATM
interfaces; see utopia(4)
wi/ The wi(4) WaveLAN driver
fs/
fdescfs/ per-process file descriptors
fifofs/ IEEE Std 1003.1
(``POSIX.1'') FIFOs file
system
msdosfs/ MS-DOS file system
ntfs/ NTFS file system
nullfs/ loopback file system
nwfs/ NetWare file system
portalfs/ portal file system
procfs/ process file system
smbfs/ SMB/CIFS file system
udf/ UDF file system
umapfs/ alternate uid/gid mappings
file system
unionfs union file system
geom/ GEOM framework
concat/ CONCAT GEOM class
gate/ GATE GEOM class
mirror/ MIRROR GEOM class
nop/ NOP GEOM class
raid3/ RAID3 GEOM class
stripe/ STRIPE GEOM class
isc/ ISC utility library libisc include files
isofs/
cd9660/ iso9660 file system
libmilter/ C include files for libmilter, the
sendmail(8) mail filter API
machine/ machine-specific C include files
net/ miscellaneous network C include files
netatalk/ Appletalk protocol
netatm/ ATM include files; see atm(8)
netinet/ C include files for Internet standard
protocols; see inet(4)
netinet6/ C include files for Internet protocol
version 6; see inet6(4)
netipx/ IPX/SPX protocol stacks
netkey/ kernel key-management service
netnatm/ NATM include files; see natm(4)
api/ include files for the sig-
nalling API
msg/ include files that describe
signalling messages and
declare associated functions
saal/ include files for the sig-
nalling AAL layer
sig/ include files for the UNI
signalling protocol
netsmb/ SMB/CIFS requester
nfs/ C include files for NFS (Network File
System)
objc/ Objective C include files
openssl/ OpenSSL (Cryptography/SSL toolkit) head-
ers
pccard/ PC-CARD controllers
posix4/ POSIX real-time extensions includes; see
p1003_1b(9)
protocols/ C include files for Berkeley service
protocols
readline/ get a line from a user, with editing;
see readline(3)
rpc/ remote procedure calls; see rpc(3)
rpcsvc/ definition of RPC service structures;
see rpc(3)
security/ PAM; see pam(8)
sys/ system C include files (kernel data
structures)
ufs/ C include files for UFS (The U-word File
System)
ffs/ Fast file system
ufs/ UFS file system
vm/ virtual memory; see vmstat(8)
lib/ shared and archive ar(1)-type libraries
aout/ a.out archive libraries
compat/ shared libraries for compatibility
aout/ a.out backward compatibility
libraries
libdata/ miscellaneous utility data files
gcc/ gcc(1) configuration data
ldscripts/ linker scripts; see ld(1)
lint/ various prebuilt lint libraries; see
lint(1)
libexec/ system daemons & system utilities (executed by other
programs)
aout/ utilities to manipulate a.out executa-
bles
elf/ utilities to manipulate ELF executables
lpr/ utilities and filters for LP print sys-
tem; see lpr(1)
sendmail/ the sendmail(8) binary; see
mailwrapper(8)
sm.bin/ restricted shell for sendmail(8); see
smrsh(8)
local/ local executables, libraries, etc. Also used as the
default destination for the FreeBSD ports framework.
Within local/, the general layout sketched out by
hier for /usr should be used. Exceptions are the
man directory (directly under local/ rather than
under local/share/), ports documentation (in
share/doc/<port>/), and /usr/local/etc (mimics
/etc).
obj/ architecture-specific target tree produced by build-
ing the /usr/src tree
ports/ The FreeBSD ports collection (optional).
sbin/ system daemons & system utilities (executed by
users)
share/ architecture-independent files
calendar/ a variety of pre-fab calendar files; see
calendar(1)
dict/ word lists; see em>look(1)
freebsd FreeBSD-specific terms,
proper names, and jargon
words common words
web2 words from Webster's 2nd
International
papers/ reference databases; see
refer(1)
doc/ miscellaneous documentation; source for
most of the printed BSD manuals (avail-
able from the USENIX association)
FAQ/ Frequently Asked Questions
IPv6/ implementation notes for IPv6
bind/ documents pertaining to BIND
(the Berkeley Internet Name
Domain)
es/ Spanish translations of docu-
ments in /usr/share/doc
handbook/ FreeBSD Handbook
ja/ Japanese translations of doc-
uments in /usr/share/doc
ncurses/ HTML documents pertaining to
ncurses; see ncurses(3)
ntp/ HTML documents pertaining to
the Network Time Protocol
papers/ UNIX Papers
psd/ UNIX Programmer's Supplemen-
tary Documents
ru/ Russian translations of docu-
ments in /usr/share/doc
smm/ UNIX System Manager's Manual
tutorials/ FreeBSD tutorials
usd/ UNIX User's Supplementary
Documents
zh/ Chinese translations of docu-
ments in /usr/share/doc
examples/ various examples for users and program-
mers
games/ ASCII text files used by various games
groff_font/
device description file for device name
info/ GNU Info hypertext system
isdn/ ISDN
locale/ localization files; see setlocale(3)
man/ manual pages
me/ macros for use with the me macro package;
see me(7)
misc/ miscellaneous system-wide ASCII text
files
fonts/ ???
pcvtfonts/ pcvt fonts; see pcvt(4)
termcap terminal characteristics
database; see termcap(5)
mk/ templates for make; see make(1)
nls/ national language support files; see
mklocale(1)
pcvt/ pcvt documentation and etc examples; see
pcvt(4)
security/ data files for security policies such as
mac_lomac(4)
sendmail/ sendmail(8) configuration files
skel/ example . (dot) files for new accounts
snmp/ MIBs, example files and tree definitions
for the SNMP daemon.
defs/ Tree definition files for use
with gensnmptree(1)
mibs/ MIB files
syscons/ files used by syscons; see syscons(4)
fonts/ console fonts; see
vidcontrol(1) and vidfont(1)
keymaps/ console keyboard maps; see
kbdcontrol(1) and kbdmap(1)
scrnmaps/ console screen maps
tabset/ tab description files for a variety of
terminals; used in the termcap file; see
termcap(5)
tmac/ text processing macros; see nroff(1) and
troff(1)
vi/ localization support and utilities for
vi(1)
zoneinfo/ timezone configuration information; see
tzfile(5)
src/ BSD, third-party, and/or local source files
bin/ source code for files in /bin
contrib/ source code for contributed software
crypto/ source code for contributed cryptography
software
etc/ source code for files in /etc
games/ source code for files in /usr/games
gnu/ Utilities covered by the GNU General
Public License
include/ source code for files in /usr/include
kerberos5/ build infrastructure for kerberos ver-
sion 5
lib/ source code for files in /usr/lib
libexec/ source code for files in /usr/libexec
release/ files required to produce a FreeBSD
release
sbin/ source code for files in /sbin
secure/ build directory for files in
/usr/src/crypto
share/ source for files in /usr/share
sys/ kernel source code
tools/ tools used for maintenance and testing
of FreeBSD
usr.bin/ source code for files in /usr/bin
usr.sbin/ source code for files in /usr/sbin
X11R6/ X11R6 distribution executables, libraries, etc
(optional).
bin/ X11R6 binaries (servers, utilities, local
packages/ports).
etc/ X11R6 configuration files and scripts.
include/ X11R6 include files.
lib/ X11R6 libraries.
man/ X11R6 manual pages.
share/ architecture-independent files.
/var/ multi-purpose log, temporary, transient, and spool files
account/ system accounting files
acct execution accounting file; see acct(5)
at/ timed command scheduling files; see at(1)
jobs/ directory containing job files
spool/ directory containing output spool files
backups/ miscellaneous backup files
crash/ default directory to store kernel crash dumps; see
crash(8) and savecore(8)
cron/ files used by cron; see cron(8)
tabs/ crontab files; see crontab(5)
db/ miscellaneous automatically generated system-spe-
cific database files
empty/ empty directory for use by programs that need a
specifically empty directory. Used for instance by
sshd(8) for privilege separation.
games/ miscellaneous game status and score files
heimdal/ kerberos server databases; see kdc(8)
log/ miscellaneous system log files
wtmp login/logout log; see wtmp(5)
mail/ user mailbox files
msgs/ system messages database; see msgs(1)
preserve/ temporary home of files preserved after an acciden-
tal death of an editor; see ex(1)
quotas/ file system quota information files
run/ system information files describing various info
about system since it was booted
named/ writable by the ``bind'' user; see
named(8)
ppp/ writable by the ``network'' group for
command connection sockets; see ppp(8)
utmp database of current users; see utmp(5)
rwho/ rwho data files; see rwhod(8), rwho(1), and
ruptime(1)
spool/ miscellaneous printer and mail system spooling
directories
clientmqueue/
undelivered submission mail queue; see
sendmail(8)
ftp/ commonly ~ftp; the anonymous ftp root
directory
mqueue/ undelivered mail queue; see sendmail(8)
output/ line printer spooling directories
tmp/ temporary files that are kept between system
reboots
vi.recover/
the directory where recovery files are
stored
yp/ the NIS maps
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