HIER(7) FreeBSD Miscellaneous Information Manual HIER(7) NAME hier – layout of file systems SYNOPSIS An overview of the file system hierarchy. DESCRIPTION / root directory /bin/ user utilities that are fundamental to single-user and multi-user modes /boot/ programs and configuration files used during bootstrap of the operating system defaults/ default bootstrap configuration files; see loader.conf(5) dtb/ compiled flattened device tree (FDT) files; see fdt(4) and dtc(1) efi/ mount point for the EFI System Partition (ESP) on UEFI systems firmware/ loadable kernel modules containing binary firmware, for hardware to which firmware must be downloaded kernel/ pure kernel executable (the operating system loaded into memory at boot time) and kernel modules modules/ third-party loadable kernel modules, such as those associated with ports(7) overlays/ compiled flattened device tree (FDT) overlays; see fdt(4) and dtc(1) zfs/ zfs(8) pool cache files /compat/ normally a link to /usr/compat. If not, then the /usr/compat comments apply /dev/ the normal mount point for devfs(5) fd/ file descriptor files; see fd(4) /etc/ system configuration files and scripts bluetooth/ bluetooth configuration files defaults/ default system configuration files; see rc(8) localtime local timezone information; see ctime(3) mail/ sendmail(8) control files mtree/ mtree(8) configuration files pam.d/ configuration files for the Pluggable Authentication Modules (PAM) library; see pam(3) periodic/ scripts that are run daily, weekly, or monthly by cron(8); see periodic(8) ppp/ PPP configuration files; see ppp(8) rc.d/ system and daemon startup/control scripts; see rc(8) security/ OpenBSM audit configuration files; see audit(8) ssh/ OpenSSH configuration files; see ssh(1) ssl/ OpenSSL configuration files /home/ users' home directories; whilst the layout is not standardized, the typical home for an interactive user beastie would be /home/beastie/ /lib/ system libraries that are critial to binaries in /bin and /sbin casper/ service-specific libcasper(3) Capsicum support libraries geom/ class-specific libraries for the geom(8) utility nvmecontrol/ vendor-specific libraries to extend the nvmecontrol(8) utility /libexec/ system utilities that are critial to binaries in /bin and /sbin /media/ contains subdirectories that are mount points for removable media such as USB drives, CDs and DVDs /mnt/ empty directory commonly used by system administrators as a temporary mount point /net/ automounted NFS shares; see auto_master(5) /nonexistent/ a non-existent directory; conventionally, a home directory for special user accounts that do not require a home directory. See also /var/empty/ /proc/ process file system; see procfs(5) /rescue/ statically-linked programs for emergency recovery; see rescue(8) /root/ home directory of the root user /sbin/ system programs and administration utilities that are fundamental to single-user and multi-user modes /tmp/ temporary files that may be removed by rc(8); see the clear_tmp_enable variable of rc.conf(5) /usr/ contains the majority of user utilities and applications bin/ common utilities, programming tools, and applications compat/ files needed to support binary compatibility with other operating systems; see linux(4) freebsd-dist/ distribution files (like base.txz; see) release(7) and bsdinstall(8) include/ standard C include files lib/ shared and archive ar(1)-type libraries compat/ shared libraries for compatibility debug/ standalone debug data for the kernel and base system libraries and binaries dtrace/ DTrace library scripts engines/ OpenSSL (Cryptography/SSL toolkit) dynamically loadable engines libdata/ miscellaneous utility data files gcc/ GCC configuration data ldscripts/ linker scripts; see ld(1) pkgconfig/ pc(5) (ports/devel/pkgconf) files; collections of compiler flags, linker flags, and other information relevant to library use libexec/ system daemons and system utilities that are executed by other programs aout/ utilities to manipulate a.out executables elf/ utilities to manipulate ELF executables lpr/ utilities and filters for LP print system; 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//), and /usr/local/etc (mimics /etc). obj/ architecture-specific target tree produced by building FreeBSD from source; see build(7) ports/ FreeBSD ports collection; see ports(7) sbin/ system daemons and system utilities that are executed by users share/ architecture-independent files calendar/ system-wide calendar files; see calendar(1) dict/ word lists; see look(1) freebsd FreeBSD-specific terms, proper names, and jargon web2 words from Webster's Second International doc/ miscellaneous documentation examples/ various examples for users and programmers firmware/ firmware images loaded by userland programs games/ 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 files 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 definitions for the SNMP daemon defs/ tree definition files for use with gensnmptree(1) mibs/ MIB files syscons/ syscons(4) files fonts/ console fonts; see vidcontrol(1) and vidfont(1) keymaps/ console keyboard maps; see kbdcontrol(1) and kbdmap(1) scrnmaps/ console screen maps sysroot/ files necessary for the -sysroot compiler/linker argument to build non-native binaries VERSION/ files for FreeBSD release VERSION. By convention, “VERSION” matches uname(1) -r. MACHINE.MACHINE_ARCH/ represent the binary ABI for these files. “MACHINE” matches uname(1) -m. “MACHINE_ARCH” matches uname(1) -p. 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/ vt(4) files 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; see development(7). The layout of the source tree is described by the top-level README.md file. tests/ the FreeBSD test suite; see tests(7) /var/ 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/ job files spool/ output spool files backups/ miscellaneous backup files cache/ miscellaneous cache files pkg/ cached packages for pkg(8) crash/ default directory for kernel crash dumps; see crash(8) and savecore(8) cron/ cron(8) files tabs/ crontab(5) files db/ miscellaneous automatically-generated system-specific database files freebsd-update/ temporary files and downloads for freebsd-update(8) empty/ for use by programs that require an empty directory. Uses include privilege separation by sshd(8) 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/ unused, present for historical reasons quotas/ file system quota information files run/ files containing information about the operating system since it was booted bhyve/ bhyve(8) virtual machine unix(4)-domain sockets 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 directories clientmqueue/ undelivered submission mail queue; see sendmail(8) ftp/ ftp root directory; see ftpd(8) mqueue/ undelivered mail queue; see sendmail(8) output/ line printer spooling directories tmp/ temporary files that are not removed by rc(8) vi.recover/ vi(1) recovery files yp/ the NIS maps; see yp(8) NOTES This manual page documents the default FreeBSD file system layout. 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. SEE ALSO apropos(1), find(1), grep(1), ls(1), whereis(1), which(1) HISTORY A hier manual page appeared in Version 7 AT&T UNIX. FreeBSD 14.0-CURRENT June 10, 2023 FreeBSD 14.0-CURRENT