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

/compat/

normally a link to /usr/compat. If not, then the /usr/compat comments apply

/dev/

device special files managed by devfs(5)

fd/

file descriptor files; see fd(4)

net/

network devices

/etc/

system configuration files and scripts

defaults/

default system configuration files; see rc(8)

bluetooth/

bluetooth configuration files

localtime

local timezone information; see ctime(3)

mail/

Sendmail control files

mtree/

mtree configuration files; see mtree(8)

pam.d/

configuration files for the Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) library

periodic/

scripts that are run daily, weekly, and monthly, via cron(8); see periodic(8)

rc.d/

System and daemon startup/control scripts; see rc(8)

security/

OpenBSM audit configuration files; see audit(8)

ppp/

ppp configuration files; see ppp(8)

ssh/

OpenSSH configuration files; see ssh(1)

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

/media/

contains subdirectories to be used as mount points for removable media such as CDs, USB drives, and floppy disks

/mnt/

empty directory commonly used by system administrators as a temporary mount point

/proc/

process file system; see procfs(5)

/rescue/

statically linked programs for emergency recovery; see rescue(8)

/root/

root's HOME directory

/sbin/

system programs and administration utilities fundamental to both single-user and multi-user environments

/tmp/

temporary files that are not guaranteed to persist across system reboots

/usr/

contains the majority of user utilities and applications

bin/

common utilities, programming tools, and applications

compat/

files needed to support binary compatibility with other operating systems, such as Linux

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 circuits

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 file system

fifofs/

IEEE Std 1003.1 (“POSIX.1”) FIFOs file system

msdosfs/

MS-DOS file system

nfs/

C include files for NFS (Network File System) version 2, 3 and 4

nullfs/

loopback file system

procfs/

process file system

smbfs/

SMB/CIFS file system

udf/

UDF 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

netinet/

C include files for Internet standard protocols; see inet(4)

netinet6/

C include files for Internet protocol version 6; see inet6(4)

netipsec/

kernel key-management service; see ipsec(4)

netipx/

IPX/SPX protocol stacks

netnatm/

NATM include files; see natm(4)

api/

include files for the signalling API

msg/

include files that describe signalling messages and declare associated functions

saal/

include files for the signalling AAL layer

sig/

include files for the UNI signalling protocol

netsmb/

SMB/CIFS requester

nfs/

C include files for NFS (Network File System) version 2 and 3 (legacy)

objc/

Objective C include files

openssl/

OpenSSL (Cryptography/SSL toolkit) headers

pccard/

PC-CARD controllers

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

dtrace/

DTrace library scripts

engines/

OpenSSL (Cryptography/SSL toolkit) dynamically loadable engines

private/

Private system libraries not for use by third-party programs. ABI and API stability are not guaranteed.

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 executables

elf/

utilities to manipulate ELF executables

lpr/

utilities and filters for LP print system; 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 building 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 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 (available 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 documents in /usr/share/doc

handbook/

FreeBSD Handbook

ja/

Japanese translations of documents in /usr/share/doc

legal/

License files for vendor supplied firmwares

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 Supplementary Documents

ru/

Russian translations of documents in /usr/share/doc

smm/

UNIX System Manager's Manual

tutorials/

FreeBSD tutorials

usd/

UNIX User's Supplementary Documents

zh/

Chinese translations of documents in /usr/share/doc

examples/

various examples for users and programmers

games/

ASCII text files used by various games

groff_font/

device description file for device name

info/

GNU Info hypertext system

keys/

known trusted and revoked keys.

keys/pkg/

fingerprints for pkg(7) and pkg(8)

locale/

localization files; see setlocale(3)

man/

manual pages

mdocml/

data files used by mdocml

me/

macros for use with the me macro package; see me(7)

misc/

miscellaneous system-wide ASCII text files

fonts/

???

termcap

terminal characteristics database; see termcap(5)

mk/

templates for make; see make(1)

nls/

national language support files; see mklocale(1)

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)

vt/

files used by vt; see vt(4)

fonts/

console fonts; see vidcontrol(1) and vidfont(1)

keymaps/

console keyboard maps; see kbdcontrol(1) and kbdmap(1)

src/

BSD, third-party, and/or local source files

bin/

source code for files in /bin

cddl/

Utilities covered by the Common Development and Distribution License

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 version 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

tests/

The FreeBSD test suite. See tests(7) for more details.

/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

cache/

miscellaneous cached files

pkg/

cached packages for pkg(8)

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-specific 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

utx.lastlogin

last login log; see getutxent(3)

utx.log

login/logout log; see getutxent(3)

mail/

user mailbox files

msgs/

system messages database; see msgs(1)

preserve/

temporary home of files preserved after an accidental 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

ppp/

writable by the “network” group for command connection sockets; see ppp(8)

utx.active

database of current users; see getutxent(3)

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

NOTES

This manual page documents the default FreeBSD 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.

SEE ALSO

apropos(1), find(1), finger(1), grep(1), ls(1), whatis(1), whereis(1), which(1), fd(4), devfs(5), fsck(8)

HISTORY

A hier manual page appeared in Version 7 AT&T UNIX.