FreeBSD Manual Pages
HIER(7) BSD 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) dtb/ Compiled flattened device tree (FDT) files; see fdt(4) and dtc(1) efi/ Mount point for EFI System Partition (ESP) on UEFI systems firmware/ loadable kernel modules containing binary firmware for hardware that needs firmware downloaded to it to function kernel/ pure kernel executable (the operating system loaded into memory at boot time) and kernel modules modules/ third-party loadable kernel modules, such as the ones installed from ports(7) overlays/ Compiled flattened device tree (FDT) overlays; see fdt(4) and dtc(1) zfs/ zfs(8) zpool cache files /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) /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 Authentica- tion 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 casper/ service-specific libcasper(3) Capsicum support li- braries geom/ class-specific libraries for the geom(8) utility nvmecontrol/ vendor-specific libraries to extend the nvmecontrol(8) utility /libexec/ critical system utilities needed for binaries in /bin and /sbin /media/ contains subdirectories to be used as mount points for remov- able media such as CDs, USB drives, and floppy disks /mnt/ empty directory commonly used by system administrators as a temporary mount point /net/ automounted NFS shares; see auto_master(5) /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 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; see linux(4) include/ standard C include files 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/ SCSI device on top of CAM dev/ C include files for programming various FreeBSD devices ic/ various header files de- scribing driver- and bus- independent hardware cir- cuits ofw/ Open Firmware support pbio/ 8255 PPI cards; see pbio(4) ppbus/ parallel port bus; see ppbus(4) usb/ USB subsystem fs/ fdescfs/ per-process file descrip- tors file system msdosfs/ MS-DOS file system nfs/ C include files for NFS (Network File System) ver- sion 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 libmilter/ C include files for libmilter, the sendmail(8) mail filter API machine/ machine-specific C include files net/ miscellaneous network C include files altq/ C include files for alter- nate queueing net80211/ C include files for 802.11 wireless networking; see net80211(4) 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) netsmb/ SMB/CIFS requester nfs/ C include files for NFS (Network File System) version 2 and 3 (legacy) openssl/ OpenSSL (Cryptography/SSL toolkit) headers protocols/ C include files for Berkeley service protocols 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 compatibil- ity libraries debug/ standalone debug data for the kernel and base system libraries and binaries dtrace/ DTrace library scripts engines/ OpenSSL (Cryptography/SSL toolkit) dy- namically loadable engines libdata/ miscellaneous utility data files gcc/ gcc(1) configuration data ldscripts/ linker scripts; see ld(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 ports(7) framework. Within local/, the general layout sketched out by hier for /usr should be used. Exceptions are the 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/ ports(7), the FreeBSD ports collection 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 web2 words from Webster's 2nd International 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 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 firmware files ncurses/ HTML documents pertaining to ncurses; see ncurses(3) ntp/ HTML documents pertaining to the Network Time Proto- col ru/ Russian translations of documents in /usr/share/doc tutorials/ FreeBSD tutorials zh/ Chinese translations of documents in /usr/share/doc examples/ various examples for users and program- mers firmware/ firmware images loaded by userland pro- grams games/ ASCII text files used by various games keys/ known trusted and revoked keys. pkg/ fingerprints for pkg(7) and pkg(8) locale/ localization files; see setlocale(3) man/ manual pages 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 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 defini- tions 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) vi/ localization support and utilities for vi(1) 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) zoneinfo/ timezone configuration information; see tzfile(5) src/ FreeBSD source code bin/ source code for files in /bin cddl/ utilities covered by the Common Devel- opment and Distribution License contrib/ source code for contributed software crypto/ source code for contributed cryptogra- phy software etc/ source code for files in /etc 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 /lib and /usr/lib libexec/ source code for files in /usr/libexec release/ files required to produce a FreeBSD re- lease rescue/ source code for files in /rescue sbin/ source code for files in /sbin secure/ build directory for files in /usr/src/crypto share/ source for files in /usr/share stand/ boot loader source code sys/ kernel source code amd64/ AMD64 architecture support arm/ ARM architecture support arm64/ ARMv8 architecture support cam/ cam(4) and ctl(4) cddl/ CDDL-licensed optional sources, including ZFS and DTrace ddb/ ddb(4) fs/ most filesystems dev/ device drivers geom/ geom(4) i386/ i386 (32 bit) architecture support kern/ main part of the kernel mips/ MIPS architecture support net80211/ net80211(4) netgraph/ netgraph(4) netinet/ inet(4) netinet6/ inet6(4) netipsec/ ipsec(4) netpfil/ ipfw(4) and pf(4) opencrypto/ crypto(7) powerpc/ PowerPC/POWER architecture support riscv/ RISC-V architecture support security/ audit(4) and mac(4) sparc64/ SPARC64 architecture sup- port sys/ kernel headers ufs/ Unix File System x86/ code shared by AMD64 and i386 architectures targets/ support for experimental DIRDEPS_BUILD tests/ source code for files in /usr/tests 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) /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-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 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 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 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 di- rectories 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 re- boots 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 adminis- trator's discretion. A well-maintained installation will include a cus- tomized 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. BSD January 9, 2021 BSD
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