1hier(7) Miscellaneous Information Manual hier(7)
2
6 hier - description of the filesystem hierarchy
7
9 A typical Linux system has, among others, the following directories:
10 / This is the root directory. This is where the whole tree
12 starts.
13 /bin This directory contains executable programs which are needed in
15 single user mode and to bring the system up or repair it.
16 /boot Contains static files for the boot loader. This directory holds
18 only the files which are needed during the boot process. The
19 map installer and configuration files should go to /sbin and
20 /etc. The operating system kernel (initrd for example) must be
21 located in either / or /boot.
22 /dev Special or device files, which refer to physical devices. See
24 mknod(1).
25 /etc Contains configuration files which are local to the machine.
27 Some larger software packages, like X11, can have their own sub‐
28 directories below /etc. Site-wide configuration files may be
29 placed here or in /usr/etc. Nevertheless, programs should al‐
30 ways look for these files in /etc and you may have links for
31 these files to /usr/etc.
32 /etc/opt
34 Host-specific configuration files for add-on applications in‐
35 stalled in /opt.
36 /etc/sgml
38 This directory contains the configuration files for SGML (op‐
39 tional).
40 /etc/skel
42 When a new user account is created, files from this directory
43 are usually copied into the user's home directory.
44 /etc/X11
46 Configuration files for the X11 window system (optional).
47 /etc/xml
49 This directory contains the configuration files for XML (op‐
50 tional).
51 /home On machines with home directories for users, these are usually
53 beneath this directory, directly or not. The structure of this
54 directory depends on local administration decisions (optional).
55 /lib This directory should hold those shared libraries that are nec‐
57 essary to boot the system and to run the commands in the root
58 filesystem.
59 /lib<qual>
61 These directories are variants of /lib on system which support
62 more than one binary format requiring separate libraries (op‐
63 tional).
64 /lib/modules
66 Loadable kernel modules (optional).
67 /lost+found
69 This directory contains items lost in the filesystem. These
70 items are usually chunks of files mangled as a consequence of a
71 faulty disk or a system crash.
72 /media This directory contains mount points for removable media such as
74 CD and DVD disks or USB sticks. On systems where more than one
75 device exists for mounting a certain type of media, mount direc‐
76 tories can be created by appending a digit to the name of those
77 available above starting with '0', but the unqualified name must
78 also exist.
79 /media/floppy[1-9]
81 Floppy drive (optional).
82 /media/cdrom[1-9]
84 CD-ROM drive (optional).
85 /media/cdrecorder[1-9]
87 CD writer (optional).
88 /media/zip[1-9]
90 Zip drive (optional).
91 /media/usb[1-9]
93 USB drive (optional).
94 /mnt This directory is a mount point for a temporarily mounted
96 filesystem. In some distributions, /mnt contains subdirectories
97 intended to be used as mount points for several temporary
98 filesystems.
99 /opt This directory should contain add-on packages that contain
101 static files.
102 /proc This is a mount point for the proc filesystem, which provides
104 information about running processes and the kernel. This
105 pseudo-filesystem is described in more detail in proc(5).
106 /root This directory is usually the home directory for the root user
108 (optional).
109 /run This directory contains information which describes the system
111 since it was booted. Once this purpose was served by /var/run
112 and programs may continue to use it.
113 /sbin Like /bin, this directory holds commands needed to boot the sys‐
115 tem, but which are usually not executed by normal users.
116 /srv This directory contains site-specific data that is served by
118 this system.
119 /sys This is a mount point for the sysfs filesystem, which provides
121 information about the kernel like /proc, but better structured,
122 following the formalism of kobject infrastructure.
123 /tmp This directory contains temporary files which may be deleted
125 with no notice, such as by a regular job or at system boot up.
126 /usr This directory is usually mounted from a separate partition. It
128 should hold only shareable, read-only data, so that it can be
129 mounted by various machines running Linux.
130 /usr/X11R6
132 The X-Window system, version 11 release 6 (present in FHS 2.3,
133 removed in FHS 3.0).
134 /usr/X11R6/bin
136 Binaries which belong to the X-Window system; often, there is a
137 symbolic link from the more traditional /usr/bin/X11 to here.
138 /usr/X11R6/lib
140 Data files associated with the X-Window system.
141 /usr/X11R6/lib/X11
143 These contain miscellaneous files needed to run X; Often, there
144 is a symbolic link from /usr/lib/X11 to this directory.
145 /usr/X11R6/include/X11
147 Contains include files needed for compiling programs using the
148 X11 window system. Often, there is a symbolic link from
149 /usr/include/X11 to this directory.
150 /usr/bin
152 This is the primary directory for executable programs. Most
153 programs executed by normal users which are not needed for boot‐
154 ing or for repairing the system and which are not installed lo‐
155 cally should be placed in this directory.
156 /usr/bin/mh
158 Commands for the MH mail handling system (optional).
159 /usr/bin/X11
161 This is the traditional place to look for X11 executables; on
162 Linux, it usually is a symbolic link to /usr/X11R6/bin.
163 /usr/dict
165 Replaced by /usr/share/dict.
166 /usr/doc
168 Replaced by /usr/share/doc.
169 /usr/etc
171 Site-wide configuration files to be shared between several ma‐
172 chines may be stored in this directory. However, commands
173 should always reference those files using the /etc directory.
174 Links from files in /etc should point to the appropriate files
175 in /usr/etc.
176 /usr/games
178 Binaries for games and educational programs (optional).
179 /usr/include
181 Include files for the C compiler.
182 /usr/include/bsd
184 BSD compatibility include files (optional).
185 /usr/include/X11
187 Include files for the C compiler and the X-Window system. This
188 is usually a symbolic link to /usr/X11R6/include/X11.
189 /usr/include/asm
191 Include files which declare some assembler functions. This used
192 to be a symbolic link to /usr/src/linux/include/asm.
193 /usr/include/linux
195 This contains information which may change from system release
196 to system release and used to be a symbolic link to
197 /usr/src/linux/include/linux to get at operating-system-specific
198 information.
199 (Note that one should have include files there that work cor‐
201 rectly with the current libc and in user space. However, Linux
202 kernel source is not designed to be used with user programs and
203 does not know anything about the libc you are using. It is very
204 likely that things will break if you let /usr/include/asm and
205 /usr/include/linux point at a random kernel tree. Debian sys‐
206 tems don't do this and use headers from a known good kernel ver‐
207 sion, provided in the libc*-dev package.)
208 /usr/include/g++
210 Include files to use with the GNU C++ compiler.
211 /usr/lib
213 Object libraries, including dynamic libraries, plus some exe‐
214 cutables which usually are not invoked directly. More compli‐
215 cated programs may have whole subdirectories there.
216 /usr/libexec
218 Directory contains binaries for internal use only and they are
219 not meant to be executed directly by users shell or scripts.
220 /usr/lib<qual>
222 These directories are variants of /usr/lib on system which sup‐
223 port more than one binary format requiring separate libraries,
224 except that the symbolic link /usr/libqual/X11 is not required
225 (optional).
226 /usr/lib/X11
228 The usual place for data files associated with X programs, and
229 configuration files for the X system itself. On Linux, it usu‐
230 ally is a symbolic link to /usr/X11R6/lib/X11.
231 /usr/lib/gcc-lib
233 contains executables and include files for the GNU C compiler,
234 gcc(1).
235 /usr/lib/groff
237 Files for the GNU groff document formatting system.
238 /usr/lib/uucp
240 Files for uucp(1).
241 /usr/local
243 This is where programs which are local to the site typically go.
244 /usr/local/bin
246 Binaries for programs local to the site.
247 /usr/local/doc
249 Local documentation.
250 /usr/local/etc
252 Configuration files associated with locally installed programs.
253 /usr/local/games
255 Binaries for locally installed games.
256 /usr/local/lib
258 Files associated with locally installed programs.
259 /usr/local/lib<qual>
261 These directories are variants of /usr/local/lib on system which
262 support more than one binary format requiring separate libraries
263 (optional).
264 /usr/local/include
266 Header files for the local C compiler.
267 /usr/local/info
269 Info pages associated with locally installed programs.
270 /usr/local/man
272 Man pages associated with locally installed programs.
273 /usr/local/sbin
275 Locally installed programs for system administration.
276 /usr/local/share
278 Local application data that can be shared among different archi‐
279 tectures of the same OS.
280 /usr/local/src
282 Source code for locally installed software.
283 /usr/man
285 Replaced by /usr/share/man.
286 /usr/sbin
288 This directory contains program binaries for system administra‐
289 tion which are not essential for the boot process, for mounting
290 /usr, or for system repair.
291 /usr/share
293 This directory contains subdirectories with specific application
294 data, that can be shared among different architectures of the
295 same OS. Often one finds stuff here that used to live in
296 /usr/doc or /usr/lib or /usr/man.
297 /usr/share/color
299 Contains color management information, like International Color
300 Consortium (ICC) Color profiles (optional).
301 /usr/share/dict
303 Contains the word lists used by spell checkers (optional).
304 /usr/share/dict/words
306 List of English words (optional).
307 /usr/share/doc
309 Documentation about installed programs (optional).
310 /usr/share/games
312 Static data files for games in /usr/games (optional).
313 /usr/share/info
315 Info pages go here (optional).
316 /usr/share/locale
318 Locale information goes here (optional).
319 /usr/share/man
321 Manual pages go here in subdirectories according to the man page
322 sections.
323 /usr/share/man/locale/man[1-9]
325 These directories contain manual pages for the specific locale
326 in source code form. Systems which use a unique language and
327 code set for all manual pages may omit the <locale> substring.
328 /usr/share/misc
330 Miscellaneous data that can be shared among different architec‐
331 tures of the same OS.
332 /usr/share/nls
334 The message catalogs for native language support go here (op‐
335 tional).
336 /usr/share/ppd
338 Postscript Printer Definition (PPD) files (optional).
339 /usr/share/sgml
341 Files for SGML (optional).
342 /usr/share/sgml/docbook
344 DocBook DTD (optional).
345 /usr/share/sgml/tei
347 TEI DTD (optional).
348 /usr/share/sgml/html
350 HTML DTD (optional).
351 /usr/share/sgml/mathml
353 MathML DTD (optional).
354 /usr/share/terminfo
356 The database for terminfo (optional).
357 /usr/share/tmac
359 Troff macros that are not distributed with groff (optional).
360 /usr/share/xml
362 Files for XML (optional).
363 /usr/share/xml/docbook
365 DocBook DTD (optional).
366 /usr/share/xml/xhtml
368 XHTML DTD (optional).
369 /usr/share/xml/mathml
371 MathML DTD (optional).
372 /usr/share/zoneinfo
374 Files for timezone information (optional).
375 /usr/src
377 Source files for different parts of the system, included with
378 some packages for reference purposes. Don't work here with your
379 own projects, as files below /usr should be read-only except
380 when installing software (optional).
381 /usr/src/linux
383 This was the traditional place for the kernel source. Some dis‐
384 tributions put here the source for the default kernel they ship.
385 You should probably use another directory when building your own
386 kernel.
387 /usr/tmp
389 Obsolete. This should be a link to /var/tmp. This link is
390 present only for compatibility reasons and shouldn't be used.
391 /var This directory contains files which may change in size, such as
393 spool and log files.
394 /var/account
396 Process accounting logs (optional).
397 /var/adm
399 This directory is superseded by /var/log and should be a sym‐
400 bolic link to /var/log.
401 /var/backups
403 Reserved for historical reasons.
404 /var/cache
406 Data cached for programs.
407 /var/cache/fonts
409 Locally generated fonts (optional).
410 /var/cache/man
412 Locally formatted man pages (optional).
413 /var/cache/www
415 WWW proxy or cache data (optional).
416 /var/cache/<package>
418 Package specific cache data (optional).
419 /var/catman/cat[1-9] or /var/cache/man/cat[1-9]
421 These directories contain preformatted manual pages according to
422 their man page section. (The use of preformatted manual pages
423 is deprecated.)
424 /var/crash
426 System crash dumps (optional).
427 /var/cron
429 Reserved for historical reasons.
430 /var/games
432 Variable game data (optional).
433 /var/lib
435 Variable state information for programs.
436 /var/lib/color
438 Variable files containing color management information (op‐
439 tional).
440 /var/lib/hwclock
442 State directory for hwclock (optional).
443 /var/lib/misc
445 Miscellaneous state data.
446 /var/lib/xdm
448 X display manager variable data (optional).
449 /var/lib/<editor>
451 Editor backup files and state (optional).
452 /var/lib/<name>
454 These directories must be used for all distribution packaging
455 support.
456 /var/lib/<package>
458 State data for packages and subsystems (optional).
459 /var/lib/<pkgtool>
461 Packaging support files (optional).
462 /var/local
464 Variable data for /usr/local.
465 /var/lock
467 Lock files are placed in this directory. The naming convention
468 for device lock files is LCK..<device> where <device> is the de‐
469 vice's name in the filesystem. The format used is that of HDU
470 UUCP lock files, that is, lock files contain a PID as a 10-byte
471 ASCII decimal number, followed by a newline character.
472 /var/log
474 Miscellaneous log files.
475 /var/opt
477 Variable data for /opt.
478 /var/mail
480 Users' mailboxes. Replaces /var/spool/mail.
481 /var/msgs
483 Reserved for historical reasons.
484 /var/preserve
486 Reserved for historical reasons.
487 /var/run
489 Run-time variable files, like files holding process identifiers
490 (PIDs) and logged user information (utmp). Files in this direc‐
491 tory are usually cleared when the system boots.
492 /var/spool
494 Spooled (or queued) files for various programs.
495 /var/spool/at
497 Spooled jobs for at(1).
498 /var/spool/cron
500 Spooled jobs for cron(8).
501 /var/spool/lpd
503 Spooled files for printing (optional).
504 /var/spool/lpd/printer
506 Spools for a specific printer (optional).
507 /var/spool/mail
509 Replaced by /var/mail.
510 /var/spool/mqueue
512 Queued outgoing mail (optional).
513 /var/spool/news
515 Spool directory for news (optional).
516 /var/spool/rwho
518 Spooled files for rwhod(8) (optional).
519 /var/spool/smail
521 Spooled files for the smail(1) mail delivery program.
522 /var/spool/uucp
524 Spooled files for uucp(1) (optional).
525 /var/tmp
527 Like /tmp, this directory holds temporary files stored for an
528 unspecified duration.
529 /var/yp
531 Database files for NIS, formerly known as the Sun Yellow Pages
532 (YP).
533
535 The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS), Version 3.0
536 ⟨https://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/fhs.shtml⟩, published March 19,
537 2015
538
540 This list is not exhaustive; different distributions and systems may be
541 configured differently.
542
544 find(1), ln(1), proc(5), file-hierarchy(7), mount(8)
545 The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
547Linux man-pages 6.05 2023-04-18 hier(7)