1MANPATH(5)                     /etc/man_db.conf                     MANPATH(5)
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NAME

6       manpath - format of the /etc/man_db.conf file
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DESCRIPTION

9       The  manpath configuration file is used by the manual page utilities to
10       assess users' manpaths at run time, to indicate which manual page hier‐
11       archies  (manpaths)  are to be treated as system hierarchies and to as‐
12       sign them directories to be used for storing cat files.
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14       If the environment variable $MANPATH is already  set,  the  information
15       contained within /etc/man_db.conf will not override it.
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FORMAT

18       The following field types are currently recognised:
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20       # comment
21              Blank  lines or those beginning with a # will be treated as com‐
22              ments and ignored.
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24       MANDATORY_MANPATH manpath_element
25              Lines of this form indicate manpaths  that  every  automatically
26              generated  $MANPATH should contain.  This will typically include
27              /usr/man.
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29       MANPATH_MAP path_element manpath_element
30              Lines of this form set up $PATH to $MANPATH mappings.  For  each
31              path_element  found in the user's $PATH, manpath_element will be
32              added to the $MANPATH.
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34       MANDB_MAP manpath_element [ catpath_element ]
35              Lines of this form indicate which manpaths are to be treated  as
36              system  manpaths, and optionally where their cat files should be
37              stored.  This field type is particularly important if man  is  a
38              setuid  program,  as  (when  in  the  system  configuration file
39              /etc/man_db.conf rather than  the  per-user  configuration  file
40              .manpath)  it  indicates which manual page hierarchies to access
41              as the setuid user and which as the invoking user.
42
43              The system manual page hierarchies are usually those stored  un‐
44              der /usr such as /usr/man, /usr/local/man and /usr/X11R6/man.
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46              If  cat  pages  from  a particular manpath_element are not to be
47              stored or are to be stored in  the  traditional  location,  cat‐
48              path_element may be omitted.
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50              Traditional  cat  placement  would  be  impossible for read only
51              mounted manual page hierarchies and because of this it is possi‐
52              ble  to specify any valid directory hierarchy for their storage.
53              To observe the Linux FSSTND the keyword FSSTND can  be  used  in
54              place of an actual directory.
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56              Unfortunately,  it  is  necessary to specify all system man tree
57              paths,  including  alternate  operating  system  paths  such  as
58              /usr/man/sun    and    any    NLS    locale    paths   such   as
59              /usr/man/de_DE.88591.
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61              As the information is parsed line by line in the order  written,
62              it  is  necessary for any manpath that is a sub-hierarchy of an‐
63              other hierarchy to be listed first, otherwise an incorrect match
64              will be made.  An example is that /usr/man/de_DE.88591 must come
65              before /usr/man.
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67       DEFINE key value
68              Lines of this form define miscellaneous configuration variables;
69              see  the  default configuration file for those variables used by
70              the manual pager utilities.  They include default paths to vari‐
71              ous  programs  (such as grep and tbl), and default sets of argu‐
72              ments to those programs.
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74       SECTION section ...
75              Lines of this form define the order  in  which  manual  sections
76              should  be  searched.  If there are no SECTION directives in the
77              configuration file, the default is:
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79                     SECTION 1 n l 8 3 0 2 5 4 9 6 7
80
81              If multiple SECTION directives are given,  their  section  lists
82              will be concatenated.
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84              If a particular extension is not in this list (say, 1mh) it will
85              be displayed with the rest of the section it  belongs  to.   The
86              effect  of  this is that you only need to explicitly list exten‐
87              sions if you want to force a particular  order.   Sections  with
88              extensions  should  usually  be  adjacent  to their main section
89              (e.g. "1 1mh 8 ...").
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91              SECTIONS is accepted as an alternative name for this directive.
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93       MINCATWIDTH width
94              If the terminal width is less than width, cat pages will not  be
95              created (if missing) or displayed.  The default is 80.
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97       MAXCATWIDTH width
98              If  the terminal width is greater than width, cat pages will not
99              be created (if missing) or displayed.  The default is 80.
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101       CATWIDTH width
102              If width is non-zero, cat pages will always be formatted  for  a
103              terminal of the given width, regardless of the width of the ter‐
104              minal actually being used.  This should generally be within  the
105              range set by MINCATWIDTH and MAXCATWIDTH.
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107       NOCACHE
108              This flag prevents man(1) from creating cat pages automatically.
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BUGS

111       Unless  the rules above are followed and observed precisely, the manual
112       pager utilities will not function as desired.   The  rules  are  overly
113       complicated.
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115       https://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?group=man-db
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1192.9.3                             2020-06-22                        MANPATH(5)
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