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MANPATH(5)		      /etc/manpath.config		    MANPATH(5)

NAME
       manpath - format of the /etc/manpath.config file

DESCRIPTION
       The  manpath configuration file is used by the manual page utilities to
       assess users' manpaths at run time, to indicate which manual page hier‐
       archies	(manpaths)  are	 to  be	 treated  as system hierarchies and to
       assign them directories to be used for storing cat files.

       If the environment variable $MANPATH is already	set,  the  information
       contained within /etc/manpath.config will not override it.

FORMAT
       The following field types are currently recognised:

       # comment
	      Blank  lines or those beginning with a # will be treated as com‐
	      ments and ignored.

       MANDATORY_MANPATH manpath_element
	      Lines of this form indicate manpaths  that  every	 automatically
	      generated	 $MANPATH should contain.  This will typically include
	      /usr/man.

       MANPATH_MAP path_element manpath_element
	      Lines of this form set up $PATH to $MANPATH mappings.  For  each
	      path_element  found in the user's $PATH, manpath_element will be
	      added to the $MANPATH.

       MANDB_MAP manpath_element [ catpath_element ]
	      Lines of this form indicate which manpaths are to be treated  as
	      system  manpaths, and optionally where their cat files should be
	      stored.  This field type is particularly important if man	 is  a
	      setuid  program,	as  (when  in  the  system  configuration file
	      /etc/manpath.config rather than the per-user configuration  file
	      .manpath)	 it  indicates which manual page hierarchies to access
	      as the setuid user and which as the invoking user.

	      The system manual page  hierarchies  are	usually	 those	stored
	      under /usr such as /usr/man, /usr/local/man and /usr/X11R6/man.

	      If  cat  pages  from  a particular manpath_element are not to be
	      stored or are to be stored in  the  traditional  location,  cat‐
	      path_element may be omitted.

	      Traditional  cat	placement  would  be  impossible for read only
	      mounted manual page hierarchies and because of this it is possi‐
	      ble  to specify any valid directory hierarchy for their storage.
	      To observe the Linux FSSTND the keyword `FSSTND can be  used  in
	      place of an actual directory.

	      Unfortunately,  it  is  necessary to specify all system man tree
	      paths,  including	 alternate  operating  system  paths  such  as
	      /usr/man/sun    and    any    NLS	   locale    paths   such   as
	      /usr/man/de_DE.88591.

	      As the information is parsed line by line in the order  written,
	      it  is  necessary	 for  any  manpath  that is a sub-hierarchy of
	      another hierarchy to be listed  first,  otherwise	 an  incorrect
	      match  will  be  made.   An example is that /usr/man/de_DE.88591
	      must come before /usr/man.

       DEFINE key value
	      Lines of this form define miscellaneous configuration variables;
	      see  the	default configuration file for those variables used by
	      the manual pager utilities.  They include default paths to vari‐
	      ous  programs  (such as grep and tbl), and default sets of argu‐
	      ments to those programs.

       SECTION section ...
	      Lines of this form define the order  in  which  manual  sections
	      should  be  searched.  If there are no SECTION directives in the
	      configuration file, the default is:

		     SECTION 1 n l 8 3 0 2 5 4 9 6 7

	      If multiple SECTION directives are given,	 their	section	 lists
	      will be concatenated.

	      If a particular extension is not in this list (say, 1mh) it will
	      be displayed with the rest of the section it  belongs  to.   The
	      effect  of  this is that you only need to explicitly list exten‐
	      sions if you want to force a particular  order.	Sections  with
	      extensions  should  usually  be  adjacent	 to their main section
	      (e.g. "1 1mh 8 ...").

	      SECTIONS is accepted as an alternative name for this directive.

       MINCATWIDTH width
	      If the terminal width is less than width, cat pages will not  be
	      created (if missing) or displayed.  The default is 80.

       MAXCATWIDTH width
	      If  the terminal width is greater than width, cat pages will not
	      be created (if missing) or displayed.  The default is 80.

       CATWIDTH width
	      If width is non-zero, cat pages will always be formatted	for  a
	      terminal of the given width, regardless of the width of the ter‐
	      minal actually being used.  This should generally be within  the
	      range set by MINCATWIDTH and MAXCATWIDTH.

       NOCACHE
	      This flag prevents man(1) from creating cat pages automatically.

BUGS
       Unless  the rules above are followed and observed precisely, the manual
       pager utilities will not function as desired.   The  rules  are	overly
       complicated.

2.5.7				  2010-02-16			    MANPATH(5)
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