.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1993
.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
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.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
.\" are met:
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.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
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.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
.\"    must display the following acknowledgement:
.\"	This product includes software developed by the University of
.\"	California, Berkeley and its contributors.
.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
.\"    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
.\"    without specific prior written permission.
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.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
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.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
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.\"	@(#)hier.7	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/5/93
.\" $FreeBSD$
.\"
.Dd September 24, 2015
.Dt HIER 7
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm hier
.Nd layout of file systems
.Sh DESCRIPTION
A sketch of the file system hierarchy.
.Bl -tag -width ".Pa /libexec/"
.It Pa /
root directory of the file system
.It Pa /bin/
user utilities fundamental to both single-user and multi-user environments
.It Pa /boot/
programs and configuration files used during operating system bootstrap
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width ".Pa defaults/" -compact
.It Pa defaults/
default bootstrapping configuration files; see
.Xr loader.conf 5
.It Pa dtb/
Compiled flattened device tree (FDT) files; see
.Xr fdt 4 
and
.Xr dtc 1
.It Pa firmware/
Loadable modules containing binary firmware for hardware that needs
firmware downloaded to it to function
.It Pa kernel/
pure kernel executable (the operating system loaded into memory
at boot time)
.It Pa modules/
third-party loadable kernel modules;
see
.Xr kldstat 8
.It Pa zfs/
Contains 
.Xr zfs 8 
zpool cache files.
.El
.It Pa /cdrom/
default mount point for CD-ROM drives
.It Pa /compat/
normally a link to
.Pa /usr/compat .
If not, then the
.Pa /usr/compat
comments apply
.It Pa /dev/
device special files managed by
.Xr devfs 5
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width ".Pa net/" -compact
.It Pa fd/
file descriptor files;
see
.Xr \&fd 4
.It Pa net/
network devices
.El
.It Pa /etc/
system configuration files and scripts
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width ".Pa bluetooth/" -compact
.It Pa defaults/
default system configuration files;
see
.Xr rc 8
.It Pa bluetooth/
bluetooth configuration files
.It Pa localtime
local timezone information;
see
.Xr ctime 3
.It Pa mail/
Sendmail control files
.It Pa mtree/
mtree configuration files;
see
.Xr mtree 8
.It Pa pam.d/
configuration files for the Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM)
library
.It Pa periodic/
scripts that are run daily, weekly, and monthly, via
.Xr cron 8 ;
see
.Xr periodic 8
.It Pa rc.d/
System and daemon startup/control scripts;
see
.Xr rc 8
.It Pa security/
OpenBSM audit configuration files;
see
.Xr audit 8
.It Pa ppp/
ppp configuration files;
see
.Xr ppp 8
.It Pa ssh/
OpenSSH configuration files;
see
.Xr ssh 1
.It Pa ssl/
OpenSSL configuration files
.El
.It Pa /lib/
critical system libraries needed for binaries in
.Pa /bin
and
.Pa /sbin
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width ".Pa geom/" -compact
.It Pa geom/
class-specific libraries for the
.Xr geom 8
utility
.El
.It Pa /libexec/
critical system utilities needed for binaries in
.Pa /bin
and
.Pa /sbin
.It Pa /media/
contains subdirectories to be used as mount points
for removable media such as CDs, USB drives, and
floppy disks
.It Pa /mnt/
empty directory commonly used by
system administrators as a temporary mount point
.It Pa /net/
automounted NFS shares;
see
.Xr auto_master 5
.It Pa /proc/
process file system;
see
.Xr procfs 5
.It Pa /rescue/
statically linked programs for emergency recovery;
see
.Xr rescue 8
.It Pa /root/
root's HOME directory
.It Pa /sbin/
system programs and administration utilities
fundamental to both single-user and multi-user environments
.It Pa /tmp/
temporary files that are not guaranteed to persist across system reboots
.It Pa /usr/
contains the majority of user utilities and applications
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width ".Pa libdata/" -compact
.It Pa bin/
common utilities, programming tools, and applications
.It Pa compat/
files needed to support binary compatibility with other operating systems,
such as Linux
.It Pa games/
useful and semi-frivolous programs
.It Pa include/
standard C include files
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width ".Pa kerberos5/" -compact
.It Pa altq/
C include files for alternate queueing
.It Pa arpa/
C include files for Internet service protocols
.It Pa bsnmp/
C include files for the SNMP daemon
.It Pa c++/
C++ include files
.It Pa cam/
C include files for the Common Access Methods Layer
.Bl -tag -width ".Pa kerberos5/" -compact
.It Pa scsi/
The SCSI device on top of CAM
.El
.It Pa dev/
C include files for programming various
.Fx
devices
.Bl -tag -width ".Pa kerberos5/" -compact
.It Pa ic/
Various header files describing driver- and bus-independent
hardware circuits
.It Pa ofw/
Open Firmware support
.It Pa pbio/
8255 PPI cards;
see
.Xr pbio 4
.It Pa ppbus/
The parallel port bus;
see
.Xr ppbus 4
.It Pa usb/
The USB subsystem
.It Pa utopia/
Physical chip driver for ATM interfaces;
see
.Xr utopia 4
.It Pa wi/
The
.Xr wi 4
WaveLAN driver
.El
.It Pa fs/
.Bl -tag -width ".Pa kerberos5/" -compact
.It Pa fdescfs/
per-process file descriptors file system
.It Pa fifofs/
.St -p1003.1
FIFOs file system
.It Pa msdosfs/
MS-DOS file system
.It Pa nfs/
C include files for NFS (Network File System) version 2, 3 and 4
.It Pa nullfs/
loopback file system
.It Pa procfs/
process file system
.It Pa smbfs/
SMB/CIFS file system
.It Pa udf/
UDF file system
.It Pa unionfs
union file system
.El
.It Pa geom/
GEOM framework
.Bl -tag -width ".Pa kerberos5/" -compact
.It Pa concat/
CONCAT GEOM class
.It Pa gate/
GATE GEOM class
.It Pa mirror/
MIRROR GEOM class
.It Pa nop/
NOP GEOM class
.It Pa raid3/
RAID3 GEOM class
.It Pa stripe/
STRIPE GEOM class
.El
.Pp
.It Pa isc/
ISC utility library libisc include files
.It Pa isofs/
.Bl -tag -width ".Pa kerberos5/" -compact
.It Pa cd9660/
iso9660 file system
.El
.It Pa libmilter/
C include files for libmilter,
the
.Xr sendmail 8
mail filter API
.It Pa machine/
machine-specific C include files
.It Pa net/
miscellaneous network C include files
.It Pa netatalk/
Appletalk protocol
.It Pa netinet/
C include files for Internet standard protocols;
see
.Xr inet 4
.It Pa netinet6/
C include files for Internet protocol version 6;
see
.Xr inet6 4
.It Pa netipsec/
kernel key-management service;
see
.Xr ipsec 4
.It Pa netipx/
IPX/SPX protocol stacks
.It Pa netnatm/
NATM include files;
see
.Xr natm 4
.Bl -tag -width ".Pa kerberos5/" -compact
.It Pa api/
include files for the signalling API
.It Pa msg/
include files that describe signalling messages and
declare associated functions
.It Pa saal/
include files for the signalling AAL layer
.It Pa sig/
include files for the UNI signalling protocol
.El
.It Pa netsmb/
SMB/CIFS requester
.It Pa nfs/
C include files for NFS (Network File System) version 2 and 3 (legacy)
.It Pa objc/
Objective C include files
.It Pa openssl/
OpenSSL (Cryptography/SSL toolkit) headers
.It Pa pccard/
PC-CARD controllers
.It Pa protocols/
C include files for Berkeley service protocols
.It Pa readline/
get a line from a user, with editing;
see
.Xr readline 3
.It Pa rpc/
remote procedure calls;
see
.Xr rpc 3
.It Pa rpcsvc/
definition of RPC service structures; see
.Xr rpc 3
.It Pa security/
PAM; see
.Xr pam 8
.It Pa sys/
system C include files (kernel data structures)
.\" .It Pa tcl/
.\" Tcl language;
.\" see
.\" .Xr Tcl n
.\" .Bl -tag -width ".Pa kerberos5/" -compact
.\" .It Pa generic/
.\" ???
.\" .It Pa unix/
.\" ???
.\" .El
.It Pa ufs/
C include files for UFS (The U-word File System)
.Bl -tag -width ".Pa kerberos5/" -compact
.It Pa ffs/
Fast file system
.It Pa ufs/
UFS file system
.El
.It Pa vm/
virtual memory;
see
.Xr vmstat 8
.El
.Pp
.It Pa lib/
shared and archive
.Xr ar 1 Ns -type
libraries
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa aout/
a.out archive libraries
.It Pa compat/
shared libraries for compatibility
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa aout/
a.out backward compatibility libraries
.El
.It Pa debug/
standalone debug data for the base system libraries and binaries
.It Pa dtrace/
DTrace library scripts
.It Pa engines/
OpenSSL (Cryptography/SSL toolkit) dynamically loadable engines
.It Pa private/
Private system libraries not for use by third-party programs.
ABI and API stability are not guaranteed.
.El
.Pp
.It Pa libdata/
miscellaneous utility data files
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa gcc/
.Xr gcc 1
configuration data
.It Pa ldscripts/
linker scripts;
see
.Xr ld 1
.It Pa lint/
various prebuilt lint libraries;
see
.Xr lint 1
.El
.Pp
.It Pa libexec/
system daemons & system utilities (executed by other programs)
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa aout/
utilities to manipulate a.out executables
.It Pa elf/
utilities to manipulate ELF executables
.It Pa lpr/
utilities and filters for LP print system;
see
.Xr lpr 1
.It Pa sendmail/
the
.Xr sendmail 8
binary;
see
.Xr mailwrapper 8
.It Pa sm.bin/
restricted shell for
.Xr sendmail 8 ;
see
.Xr smrsh 8
.El
.Pp
.It Pa local/
local executables, libraries, etc.
Also used as the default destination for the
.Fx
ports framework.
Within
.Pa local/ ,
the general layout sketched out by
.Nm
for
.Pa /usr
should be used.
Exceptions are the
.Pa man
directory
.Po directly under
.Pa local/
rather than under
.Pa local/share/ Ns Pc ,
ports documentation
.Po in
.Pa share/doc/<port>/ Ns Pc ,
and
.Pa /usr/local/etc
.Po mimics
.Pa /etc Ns Pc .
.It Pa obj/
architecture-specific target tree produced by building the
.Pa /usr/src
tree
.It Pa ports/
The
.Fx
ports collection (optional).
.It Pa sbin/
system daemons & system utilities (executed by users)
.It Pa share/
architecture-independent files
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width ".Pa calendar/" -compact
.It Pa calendar/
a variety of pre-fab calendar files;
see
.Xr calendar 1
.It Pa dict/
word lists;
see
.Xr look 1
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa freebsd
.Fx Ns -specific
terms, proper names, and jargon
.It Pa words
common words
.It Pa web2
words from Webster's 2nd International
.It Pa papers/
reference databases;
see
.Xr refer 1
.El
.Pp
.It Pa doc/
miscellaneous documentation;
source for most of the printed
.Bx
manuals (available
from the
.Tn USENIX
association)
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa FAQ/
Frequently Asked Questions
.It Pa IPv6/
implementation notes for IPv6
.It Pa bind/
documents pertaining to BIND (the Berkeley Internet Name Domain)
.It Pa es/
Spanish translations of documents in /usr/share/doc
.It Pa handbook/
.Fx
Handbook
.It Pa ja/
Japanese translations of documents in /usr/share/doc
.It Pa legal/
License files for vendor supplied firmwares
.It Pa ncurses/
HTML documents pertaining to ncurses;
see
.Xr ncurses 3
.It Pa ntp/
HTML documents pertaining to the Network Time Protocol
.It Pa papers/
UNIX Papers
.It Pa psd/
UNIX Programmer's Supplementary Documents
.It Pa ru/
Russian translations of documents in /usr/share/doc
.It Pa smm/
UNIX System Manager's Manual
.It Pa tutorials/
.Fx
tutorials
.It Pa usd/
UNIX User's Supplementary Documents
.It Pa zh/
Chinese translations of documents in /usr/share/doc
.El
.Pp
.It Pa examples/
various examples for users and programmers
.It Pa games/
ASCII text files used by various games
.It Pa groff_font/
device description file for device name
.It Pa info/
GNU Info hypertext system
.It Pa keys/
known trusted and revoked keys.
.Bl -tag -width ".Pa keys/pkg/" -compact
.It Pa keys/pkg/
fingerprints for
.Xr pkg 7
and
.Xr pkg 8
.El
.Pp
.It Pa locale/
localization files;
see
.Xr setlocale 3
.It Pa man/
manual pages
.It Pa mdocml/
data files used by mdocml
.It Pa me/
macros for use with the me macro package;
see
.Xr me 7
.It Pa misc/
miscellaneous system-wide ASCII text files
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa fonts/
???
.It Pa termcap
terminal characteristics database;
see
.Xr termcap 5
.El
.It Pa mk/
templates for make;
see
.Xr make 1
.It Pa nls/
national language support files;
see
.Xr mklocale 1
.It Pa security/
data files for security policies such as
.Xr mac_lomac 4
.It Pa sendmail/
.Xr sendmail 8
configuration files
.It Pa skel/
example
.Pa .\&
(dot) files for new accounts
.It Pa snmp/
MIBs, example files and tree definitions for the SNMP daemon.
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa defs/
Tree definition files for use with
.Xr gensnmptree 1
.It Pa mibs/
MIB files
.El
.It Pa syscons/
files used by syscons;
see
.Xr syscons 4
.Bl -tag -width ".Pa scrnmaps/" -compact
.It Pa fonts/
console fonts;
see
.Xr vidcontrol 1
and
.Xr vidfont 1
.It Pa keymaps/
console keyboard maps;
see
.Xr kbdcontrol 1
and
.Xr kbdmap 1
.It Pa scrnmaps/
console screen maps
.El
.It Pa tabset/
tab description files for a variety of terminals; used in
the termcap file;
see
.Xr termcap 5
.It Pa tmac/
text processing macros;
see
.Xr nroff 1
and
.Xr troff 1
.It Pa vi/
localization support and utilities for
.Xr vi 1
.It Pa zoneinfo/
timezone configuration information;
see
.Xr tzfile 5
.El
.It Pa vt/
files used by vt;
see
.Xr vt 4
.Bl -tag -width ".Pa scrnmaps/" -compact
.It Pa fonts/
console fonts;
see
.Xr vidcontrol 1
and
.Xr vidfont 1
.It Pa keymaps/
console keyboard maps;
see
.Xr kbdcontrol 1
and
.Xr kbdmap 1
.\" .It Pa scrnmaps/
.\" console screen maps
.El
.It Pa src/
.Bx ,
third-party, and/or local source files
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width ".Pa kerberos5/" -compact
.It Pa bin/
source code for files in /bin
.It Pa cddl/
Utilities covered by the Common Development and Distribution License
.It Pa contrib/
source code for contributed software
.It Pa crypto/
source code for contributed cryptography software
.It Pa etc/
source code for files in
.Pa /etc
.It Pa games/
source code for files in
.Pa /usr/games
.It Pa gnu/
Utilities covered by the GNU General Public License
.It Pa include/
source code for files in
.Pa /usr/include
.It Pa kerberos5/
build infrastructure for kerberos version 5
.It Pa lib/
source code for files in
.Pa /usr/lib
.It Pa libexec/
source code for files in
.Pa /usr/libexec
.It Pa release/
files required to produce a
.Fx
release
.It Pa sbin/
source code for files in
.Pa /sbin
.It Pa secure/
build directory for files in
.Pa /usr/src/crypto
.It Pa share/
source for files in
.Pa /usr/share
.It Pa sys/
kernel source code
.It Pa tools/
tools used for maintenance and testing of
.Fx
.It Pa usr.bin/
source code for files in
.Pa /usr/bin
.It Pa usr.sbin/
source code for files in
.Pa /usr/sbin
.El
.Pp
.It Pa tests/
The
.Fx
test suite.
See
.Xr tests 7
for more details.
.El
.It Pa /var/
multi-purpose log, temporary, transient, and spool files
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width ".Pa preserve/" -compact
.It Pa account/
system accounting files
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa acct
execution accounting file;
see
.Xr acct 5
.El
.Pp
.It Pa at/
timed command scheduling files;
see
.Xr \&at 1
.Bl -tag -width ".Pa preserve/" -compact
.It Pa jobs/
directory containing job files
.It Pa spool/
directory containing output spool files
.El
.Pp
.It Pa backups/
miscellaneous backup files
.It Pa cache/
miscellaneous cached files
.Bl -tag -width ".Pa pkg/" -compact
.It Pa pkg/
cached packages for
.Xr pkg 8
.El
.Pp
.It Pa crash/
default directory to store kernel crash dumps; see
.Xr crash 8
and
.Xr savecore 8
.It Pa cron/
files used by cron;
see
.Xr cron 8
.Bl -tag -width ".Pa preserve/" -compact
.It Pa tabs/
crontab files;
see
.Xr crontab 5
.El
.Pp
.It Pa db/
miscellaneous automatically generated system-specific database files
.It Pa empty/
empty directory for use by programs that need a specifically empty directory.
Used for instance by
.Xr sshd 8
for privilege separation.
.It Pa games/
miscellaneous game status and score files
.It Pa heimdal/
kerberos server databases; see
.Xr kdc 8
.It Pa log/
miscellaneous system log files
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa utx.lastlogin
last login log;
see
.Xr getutxent 3
.It Pa utx.log
login/logout log;
see
.Xr getutxent 3
.El
.Pp
.It Pa mail/
user mailbox files
.It Pa msgs/
system messages database;
see
.Xr msgs 1
.It Pa preserve/
temporary home of files preserved after an accidental death
of an editor;
see
.Xr \&ex 1
.It Pa quotas/
file system quota information files
.It Pa run/
system information files describing various info about
system since it was booted
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa ppp/
writable by the
.Dq network
group for command connection sockets; see
.Xr ppp 8
.It Pa utx.active
database of current users;
see
.Xr getutxent 3
.El
.Pp
.It Pa rwho/
rwho data files;
see
.Xr rwhod 8 ,
.Xr rwho 1 ,
and
.Xr ruptime 1
.It Pa spool/
miscellaneous printer and mail system spooling directories
.Pp
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa clientmqueue/
undelivered submission mail queue;
see
.Xr sendmail 8
.It Pa ftp/
commonly ~ftp; the anonymous ftp root directory
.It Pa mqueue/
undelivered mail queue;
see
.Xr sendmail 8
.It Pa output/
line printer spooling directories
.El
.Pp
.It Pa tmp/
temporary files that are kept between system reboots
.Bl -tag -width Fl -compact
.It Pa vi.recover/
the directory where recovery files are stored
.El
.It Pa yp/
the NIS maps
.El
.El
.Sh NOTES
This manual page documents the default
.Fx
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.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr apropos 1 ,
.Xr find 1 ,
.Xr finger 1 ,
.Xr grep 1 ,
.Xr ls 1 ,
.Xr whatis 1 ,
.Xr whereis 1 ,
.Xr which 1 ,
.Xr fd 4 ,
.Xr devfs 5 ,
.Xr fsck 8
.Sh HISTORY
A
.Nm
manual page appeared in
.At v7 .