| NAME | DESCRIPTION | CONFORMING TO | BUGS | SEE ALSO | COLOPHON | The Linux Programming Interface |
HIER(7) Linux Programmer's Manual HIER(7)
hier - Description of the file system hierarchy
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.
The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, Version 2.2 <http://www.pathname.com/fhs/>.
This list is not exhaustive; different systems may be configured differently.
find(1), ln(1), proc(5), mount(8)
The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
This page is part of release 3.32 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/.
Linux 2009-03-30 HIER(7)
HTML rendering created 2010-12-03 by Michael Kerrisk, author of The Linux Programming Interface