NAME


hier - Description of the file system hierarchy

DESCRIPTION


A typical Linux system has, among others, the following directories:
/ This is the root directory. This is where the whole tree starts.
/bin This directory contains executable programs which are needed in single user mode and to bring the system up or repair it.
/boot Contains static files for the boot loader. This directory only holds the files which are needed during the boot process. The map installer and configuration files should go to /sbin and /etc.
/dev Special or device files, which refer to physical devices. See mknod(1).
/etc Contains configuration files which are local to the machine. Some larger software packages, like X11, can have their own subdirectories below /etc. Site-wide configuration files may be placed here or in /usr/etc. Nevertheless, programs should always look for these files in /etc and you may have links for these files to /usr/etc.
/etc/opt
 Host-specific configuration files for add-on applications installed in /opt.
/etc/sgml
 This directory contains the configuration files for SGML and XML (optional).
/etc/skel
 When a new user account is created, files from this directory are usually copied into the user’s home directory.
/etc/X11
 Configuration files for the X11 window system (optional).
/home On machines with home directories for users, these are usually beneath this directory, directly or not. The structure of this directory depends on local administration decisions.
/lib This directory should hold those shared libraries that are necessary to boot the system and to run the commands in the root file system.
/media This directory contains mount points for removable media such as CD and DVD disks or USB sticks.
/mnt This directory is a mount point for a temporarily mounted file system. In some distributions, /mnt contains subdirectories intended to be used as mount points for several temporary file systems.
/opt This directory should contain add-on packages that contain static files.
/proc This is a mount point for the proc file system, which provides information about running processes and the kernel. This pseudo-file system is described in more detail in proc(5).
/root This directory is usually the home directory for the root user (optional).
/sbin Like /bin, this directory holds commands needed to boot the system, but which are usually not executed by normal users.
/srv This directory contains site-specific data that is served by this system.
/tmp This directory contains temporary files which may be deleted with no notice, such as by a regular job or at system boot up.
/usr This directory is usually mounted from a separate partition. It should hold only sharable, read-only data, so that it can be mounted by various machines running Linux.
/usr/X11R6
 The X-Window system, version 11 release 6 (optional).
/usr/X11R6/bin
 Binaries which belong to the X-Window system; often, there is a symbolic link from the more traditional /usr/bin/X11 to here.
/usr/X11R6/lib
 Data files associated with the X-Window system.
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11
 These contain miscellaneous files needed to run X; Often, there is a symbolic link from /usr/lib/X11 to this directory.
/usr/X11R6/include/X11
 Contains include files needed for compiling programs using the X11 window system. Often, there is a symbolic link from /usr/include/X11 to this directory.
/usr/bin
 This is the primary directory for executable programs. Most programs executed by normal users which are not needed for booting or for repairing the system and which are not installed locally should be placed in this directory.
/usr/bin/X11
 is the traditional place to look for X11 executables; on Linux, it usually is a symbolic link to /usr/X11R6/bin.
/usr/dict
 Replaced by /usr/share/dict.
/usr/doc
 Replaced by /usr/share/doc.
/usr/etc
 Site-wide configuration files to be shared between several machines may be stored in this directory. However, commands should always reference those files using the /etc directory. Links from files in /etc should point to the appropriate files in /usr/etc.
/usr/games
 Binaries for games and educational programs (optional).
/usr/include
 Include files for the C compiler.
/usr/include/X11
 Include files for the C compiler and the X-Window system. This is usually a symbolic link to /usr/X11R6/include/X11.
/usr/include/asm
 Include files which declare some assembler functions. This used to be a symbolic link to /usr/src/linux/include/asm.
/usr/include/linux
 This contains information which may change from system release to system release and used to be a symbolic link to /usr/src/linux/include/linux to get at operating system specific information.

(Note that one should have include files there that work correctly with the current libc and in user space. However, Linux kernel source is not designed to be used with user programs and does not know anything about the libc you are using. It is very likely that things will break if you let /usr/include/asm and /usr/include/linux point at a random kernel tree. Debian systems don’t do this and use headers from a known good kernel version, provided in the libc*-dev package.)

/usr/include/g++
 Include files to use with the GNU C++ compiler.
/usr/lib
 Object libraries, including dynamic libraries, plus some executables which usually are not invoked directly. More complicated programs may have whole subdirectories there.
/usr/lib/X11
 The usual place for data files associated with X programs, and configuration files for the X system itself. On Linux, it usually is a symbolic link to /usr/X11R6/lib/X11.
/usr/lib/gcc-lib
 contains executables and include files for the GNU C compiler, gcc(1).
/usr/lib/groff
 Files for the GNU groff document formatting system.
/usr/lib/uucp
 Files for uucp(1).
/usr/local
 This is where programs which are local to the site typically go.
/usr/local/bin
 Binaries for programs local to the site.
/usr/local/doc
 Local documentation.
/usr/local/etc
 Configuration files associated with locally installed programs.
/usr/local/games
 Binaries for locally installed games.
/usr/local/lib
 Files associated with locally installed programs.
/usr/local/include
 Header files for the local C compiler.
/usr/local/info
 Info pages associated with locally installed programs.
/usr/local/man
 Man pages associated with locally installed programs.
/usr/local/sbin
 Locally installed programs for system administration.
/usr/local/share
 Local application data that can be shared among different architectures of the same OS.
/usr/local/src
 Source code for locally installed software.
/usr/man
 Replaced by /usr/share/man.
/usr/sbin
 This directory contains program binaries for system administration which are not essential for the boot process, for mounting /usr, or for system repair.
/usr/share
 This directory contains subdirectories with specific application data, that can be shared among different architectures of the same OS. Often one finds stuff here that used to live in /usr/doc or /usr/lib or /usr/man.
/usr/share/dict
 Contains the word lists used by spell checkers.
/usr/share/doc
 Documentation about installed programs.
/usr/share/games
 Static data files for games in /usr/games.
/usr/share/info
 Info pages go here.
/usr/share/locale
 Locale information goes here.
/usr/share/man
 Manual pages go here in subdirectories according to the man page sections.
/usr/share/man/<locale>/man[1-9]
 These directories contain manual pages for the specific locale in source code form. Systems which use a unique language and code set for all manual pages may omit the <locale> substring.
/usr/share/misc
 Miscellaneous data that can be shared among different architectures of the same OS.
/usr/share/nls
 The message catalogs for native language support go here.
/usr/share/sgml
 Files for SGML and XML.
/usr/share/terminfo
 The database for terminfo.
/usr/share/tmac
 Troff macros that are not distributed with groff.
/usr/share/zoneinfo
 Files for timezone information.
/usr/src
 Source files for different parts of the system, included with some packages for reference purposes. Don’t work here with your own projects, as files below /usr should be read-only except when installing software.
/usr/src/linux
 This was the traditional place for the kernel source. Some distributions put here the source for the default kernel they ship. You should probably use another directory when building your own kernel.
/usr/tmp
 Obsolete. This should be a link to /var/tmp. This link is present only for compatibility reasons and shouldn’t be used.
/var This directory contains files which may change in size, such as spool and log files.
/var/adm
 This directory is superseded by /var/log and should be a symbolic link to /var/log.
/var/backups
 Reserved for historical reasons.
/var/cache
 Data cached for programs.
/var/catman/cat[1-9] or /var/cache/man/cat[1-9]
 These directories contain preformatted manual pages according to their man page section. (The use of preformatted manual pages is deprecated.)
/var/cron
 Reserved for historical reasons.
/var/lib
 Variable state information for programs.
/var/local
 Variable data for /usr/local.
/var/lock
 Lock files are placed in this directory. The naming convention for device lock files is LCK..<device> where <device> is the device’s name in the file system. The format used is that of HDU UUCP lock files, that is, lock files contain a PID as a 10-byte ASCII decimal number, followed by a newline character.
/var/log
 Miscellaneous log files.
/var/opt
 Variable data for /opt.
/var/mail
 Users’ mailboxes. Replaces /var/spool/mail.
/var/msgs
 Reserved for historical reasons.
/var/preserve
 Reserved for historical reasons.
/var/run
 Run-time variable files, like files holding process identifiers (PIDs) and logged user information (utmp). Files in this directory are usually cleared when the system boots.
/var/spool
 Spooled (or queued) files for various programs.
/var/spool/at
 Spooled jobs for at(1).
/var/spool/cron
 Spooled jobs for cron(8).
/var/spool/lpd
 Spooled files for printing.
/var/spool/mail
 Replaced by /var/mail.
/var/spool/mqueue
 Queued outgoing mail.
/var/spool/news
 Spool directory for news.
/var/spool/rwho
 Spooled files for rwhod(8).
/var/spool/smail
 Spooled files for the smail(1) mail delivery program.
/var/spool/uucp
 Spooled files for uucp(1).
/var/tmp
 Like /tmp, this directory holds temporary files stored for an unspecified duration.
/var/yp
 Database files for NIS.

CONFORMING TO


The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, Version 2.2 <http://www.pathname.com/fhs/>.

BUGS


This list is not exhaustive; different systems may be configured differently.

SEE ALSO


find(1), ln(1), proc(5), mount(8)

The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard

COLOPHON


This page is part of release 3.23 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the project, and information about reporting bugs, can be found at http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.

openSUSE Logo

Contents