HIER(7) BSD Miscellaneous Information Manual HIER(7)NAMEhier — 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)
bluetooth/ bluetooth configuration files
gnats/ gnats configuration files; see send-pr(1)
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
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 remov‐
able 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 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
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) ver‐
sion 2, 3 and 4
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
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 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) version 2 and 3 (legacy)
objc/ Objective C include files
openssl/ OpenSSL (Cryptography/SSL toolkit) head‐
ers
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
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 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
legal/ License files for vendor sup‐
plied 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 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
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/ ???
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)
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
/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
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 ALSOapropos(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 May 25, 2008 BSD
