Filesystem Hierarchy Standard - Version 2.1: Edited by Daniel Quinlan

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Filesystem Hierarchy Standard — Version 2.1
Filesystem Hierarchy Standard Group

edited by Daniel Quinlan
ABSTRACT
This standard consists of a set of requirements and guidelines for file and directory
placement under UNIX-like operating systems. The guidelines are intended to support
interoperability of applications, system administration tools, development tools, and scripts as
well as greater uniformity of documentation for these systems.
April 12, 2000

Filesystem Hierarchy Standard April 12, 2000
All trademarks and copyrights are owned by their owners, unless specifically noted otherwise. Use of a
term in this document should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark.
Copyright © 1994-2000 Daniel Quinlan

Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this standard provided the copyright and
this permission notice are preserved on all copies.
Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this standard under the conditions for
verbatim copying, provided also that the title page is labeled as modified including a reference to the
original standard, provided that information on retrieving the original standard is included, and provided
that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this
one.
Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this standard into another language, under the
above conditions for modified versions, except that this permission notice may be stated in a translation
approved by the copyright holder.
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1. Introduction
1.1 Status of the Standard

This is version 2.1 of the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS 2.1).
Comments on this standard are welcome from interested parties. Suggestions for changes should be in the
form of a proposed change of text, together with appropriate supporting comments.
The guidelines in this standard are subject to modification. Use of information contained in this document
is at your own risk.
1.2 Organization of the Standard

This standard is divided into these sections:
1. Introduction
2. The Filesystem: a statement of some guiding principles.
3. The Root Directory.
4. The /usr Hierarchy.
5. The /var Hierarchy.
6. Operating System Specific Annex.
Within each section, the subdirectories are arranged in ASCII order (uppercase letters first, then in
alphabetical order) for easy reference.
1.3 Conventions
A constant-width font is used for displaying the names of files and directories.
Components of filenames that vary are represented by a description of the contents enclosed in "<" and ">"
characters, <thus>. Electronic mail addresses are also enclosed in "<" and ">" but are shown in the usual
typeface.
Optional components of filenames are enclosed in "[" and "]" characters and may be combined with the
"<" and ">" convention. For example, if a filename is allowed to occur either with or without an extension,
it might be represented by <filename>[.<extension>].
Variable substrings of directory names and filenames are indicated by "*".
1.4 Background of the FHS

The process of developing a standard filesystem hierarchy began in August 1993 with an effort to
restructure the file and directory structure of Linux. The FSSTND, a filesystem hierarchy standard specific
to the Linux operating system, was released on February 14, 1994. Subsequent revisions were released on
October 9, 1994 and March 28, 1995.
In early 1995, the goal of developing a more comprehensive version of FSSTND to address not only Linux,
but other UNIX-like systems was adopted with the help of members of the BSD development community.
As a result, a concerted effort was made to focus on issues that were general to UNIX-like systems. In
recognition of this widening of scope, the name of the standard was changed to Filesystem Hierarchy
Standard or FHS for short.
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Volunteers who have contributed extensively to this standard are listed at the end of this document. This
standard represents a consensus view of those and other contributors.
1.5 Scope
This document specifies a standard filesystem hierarchy for FHS filesystems by specifying the location of
files and directories, and the contents of some system files.
This standard has been designed to be used by system integrators, package developers, and system
administrators in the construction and maintenance of FHS compliant filesystems. It is primarily intended
to be a reference and is not a tutorial on how to manage a conforming filesystem hierarchy.
The FHS grew out of earlier work on FSSTND, a filesystem organization standard for the Linux operating
system. It builds on FSSTND to address interoperability issues not just in the Linux community but in a
wider arena including 4.4BSD-based operating systems. It incorporates lessons learned in the BSD world
and elsewhere about multi-architecture support and the demands of heterogeneous networking.
Although this standard is more comprehensive than previous attempts at filesystem hierarchy
standardization, periodic updates may become necessary as requirements change in relation to emerging
technology. It is also possible that better solutions to the problems addressed here will be discovered so
that our solutions will no longer be the best possible solutions. Supplementary drafts may be released in
addition to periodic updates to this document. However, a specific goal is backwards compatibility from
one release of this document to the next.
Comments related to this standard are welcome. Any comments or suggestions for changes should be
directed to the FHS editor (Daniel Quinlan <[email protected]>), or if you prefer, the FHS mailing
list. Typographical or grammatical comments should be directed to the FHS editor.
Before sending mail to the mailing list it is requested that you first contact the FHS editor in order to avoid
excessive re-discussion of old topics. Improper messages will not be well-received on the mailing list.
Questions about how to interpret items in this document may occasionally arise. If you have need for a
clarification, please contact the FHS editor. Since this standard represents a consensus of many
participants, it is important to make certain that any interpretation also represents their collective opinion.
For this reason it may not be possible to provide an immediate response unless the inquiry has been the
subject of previous discussion.
1.6 General Guidelines

Here are some of the guidelines that have been used in the development of this standard:
• Solve technical problems while limiting transitional difficulties.
• Make the specification reasonably stable.
• Gain the approval of distributors, developers, and other decision-makers in relevant development
groups and encourage their participation.
• Provide a standard that is attractive to the implementors of different UNIX-like systems.
1.7 Intended Audience

The intended audience of this standard includes, but is not limited to the following groups of people:
• System Developers
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• System Integrators and Distributors

• Application Developers
• Documentation Writers
• System Administrators and other interested parties (for information purposes)
1.8 Conformance with this Document

This section defines the meanings of the terms "compliant" and "compatible" with respect to this standard,
as well as "partial" compliance and "partial" compatibility.
An "implementation" here refers to a distribution, an installed system, a program, a package (or some
similar piece of software or data), or some component thereof.
An implementation is fully compliant with this standard if every requirement in this standard is met. Every
file or directory which is part of the implementation must be physically located as specified in this
document. If the contents of a file are described here the actual contents must correspond to the
description. The implementation must also attempt to find any files or directories, even those external to
itself, primarily or exclusively in the location specified in this standard.
For short, "compliant" may be equivalently used instad of "fully compliant".
An implementation is fully compatible with this standard if every file or directory which it contains can be
found by looking in the location specified here and will be found with the contents as specified here, even if
that is not the primary or physical location of the file or directory in question. The implementation must,
when it attempts to find any files or directories which are not part of it, do so in the location specified in this
standard, though it may also attempt to find it in other (non-standard) locations.
For short, "compatible" may be equivalently used instad of "fully compatible".
An implementation is partially compliant or partially compatible respectively if it complies with or is
compatible with a significant subset of this document. Partial compliance and partial compatibility are only
intended to apply to distributions and not to separate programs. The phrase "a significant subset" is
admittedly subjective, and in borderline cases, the concerned party should contact the FHS editor. It is
anticipated that some variation will be tolerated in borderline cases.
To qualify as partially FHS compliant or partially FHS compatible an implementation must provide a list of
all places at which it and the FHS document differ in addition to a brief explanation of the reasoning for
this difference. This list shall be provided with the implementation in question, and also reported and made
available to the FHS mailing list or the FHS editor.
The terms "must", "should", "contains", "is" and so forth should be read as requirements for compliance or
compatibility.
Note that an implementation does not need to contain all the files and directories specified in this standard
to be compliant or compatible. Only the files and directories an implementation actually contains need to
be located appropriately. For example, if a particular filesystem is not supported by a distribution, the tools
for that filesystem need not be included, even though they may be explicitly listed in this standard.
Furthermore, certain portions of this document are optional. In this case this will be stated explicitly, or
indicated with the use of one or more of "may", "recommend", or "suggest". Items marked as optional have
no bearing on the compliance or conformance of an implementation; they are suggestions meant to
encourage common practice, but may be located anywhere at the implementor’s choice.
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2. The Filesystem
The UNIX filesystem is characterized by:
• A hierarchical structure
• Consistent treatment of file data
• Protection of file data
This standard assumes that the operating system underlying an FHS-compliant file system supports the
same basic security features found in most UNIX filesystems. Note that this standard does not attempt to
agree in every possible respect with any particular UNIX system’s implementation. However, many aspects
of this standard are based on ideas found in UNIX and other UNIX-like systems.
This is after careful consideration of other factors, including:
• Traditional and well-considered practices in UNIX-like systems.
• The implementation of other filesystem structures
• Applicable standards
It is possible to define two independent categories of files: shareable vs. unshareable and variable vs. static.
Shareable data is that which can be shared between several different hosts; unshareable is that which must
be specific to a particular host. For example, user home directories are shareable data, but device lock files
are not.
Static data includes binaries, libraries, documentation, and anything that does not change without system
administrator intervention; variable data is anything else that does change without system administrator
intervention.
For ease of backup, administration, and file-sharing on heterogenous networks of systems with different
architectures and operating systems, it is desirable that there be a simple and easily understandable
mapping from directories (especially directories considered as potential mount points) to the type of data
they contain.
Throughout this document, and in any well-planned filesystem, an understanding of this basic principle will
help organize the structure and lend it additional consistency.
The distinction between shareable and unshareable data is needed for several reasons:
• In a networked environment (i.e., more than one host at a site), there is a good deal of data that can be
shared between different hosts to save space and ease the task of maintenance.
• In a networked environment, certain files contain information specific to a single host. Therefore
these filesystems cannot be shared (without taking special measures).
• Historical implementations of UNIX-like filesystems interspersed shareable and unshareable data in
the same hierarchy, making it difficult to share large portions of the filesystem.
The "shareable" distinction can be used to support, for example:
• A /usr partition (or components of /usr) mounted (read-only) through the network (using NFS).
• A /usr partition (or components of /usr) mounted from read-only media. A CD-ROM is one
copy of many identical ones distributed to other users by the postal mail system and other methods.
It can thus be regarded as a read-only filesystem shared with other FHS-compliant systems by some
kind of "network".
The "static" versus "variable" distinction affects the filesystem in two major ways:
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• Since / contains both variable and static data, it needs to be mounted read-write.
• Since the traditional /usr contains both variable and static data, and since we may want to mount it
read-only (see above), it is necessary to provide a method to have /usr mounted read-only. This is
done through the creation of a /var hierarchy that is mounted read-write (or is a part of another
read-write partition, such as /), taking over much of the /usr partition’s traditional functionality.
Here is a summarizing chart. This chart is only an example for a common FHS-compliant system, other
chart layouts are possible within FHS-compliance.
shareable unshareable
static /usr /etc
/opt /boot
variable /var/mail /var/run
/var/spool/news /var/lock
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3. The Root Directory

This section describes the root directory structure. The contents of the root filesystem should be adequate
to boot, restore, recover, and/or repair the system:
• To boot a system, enough must be present on the root partition to mount other filesystems. This
includes utilities, configuration, boot loader information, and other essential start-up data. /usr,
/opt, and /var are designed such that they may be located on other partitions or filesystems.
• To enable recovery and/or repair of a system, those utilities needed by an experienced maintainer to
diagnose and reconstruct a damaged system should be present on the root filesystem.
• To restore a system, those utilities needed to restore from system backups (on floppy, tape, etc.)
should be present on the root filesystem.
The primary concern used to balance these considerations, which favor placing many things on the root
filesystem, is the goal of keeping root as small as reasonably possible. For several reasons, it is desirable to
keep the root filesystem small:
• It is occasionally mounted from very small media.
• The root filesystem contains many system-specific configuration files. Possible examples include a
kernel that is specific to the system, a specific hostname, etc. This means that the root filesystem
isn’t always shareable between networked systems. Keeping it small on servers in networked
systems minimizes the amount of lost space for areas of unshareable files. It also allows
workstations with smaller local hard drives.
• While you may have the root filesystem on a large partition, and may be able to fill it to your heart’s
content, there will be people with smaller partitions. If you have more files installed, you may find
incompatibilities with other systems using root filesystems on smaller partitions. If you are a
developer then you may be turning your assumption into a problem for a large number of users.
• Disk errors that corrupt data on the root filesystem are a greater problem than errors on any other
partition. A small root filesystem is less prone to corruption as the result of a system crash.
Software should never create or require special files or subdirectories in the root directory. Other locations
in the FHS hierarchy provide more than enough flexibility for any package.
BEGIN RATIONALE
There are several reasons why introducing a new subdirectory of the root filesystem is prohibited:
• It demands space on a root partition which the system administrator may want kept small and simple
for either performance or security reasons.
• It evades whatever discipline the system administrator may have set up for distributing standard file
hierarchies across mountable volumes.
END RATIONALE
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/ — the root directory

bin Essential command binaries
boot Static files of the boot loader
dev Device files
etc Host-specific system configuration
home User home directories
lib Essential shared libraries and kernel modules
mnt Mount point for mounting a filesystem temporarily
opt Add-on application software packages
root Home directory for the root user
sbin Essential system binaries
tmp Temporary files
usr Secondary hierarchy
var Variable data
Each directory listed above is specified in detail in separate subsections below. /usr and /var each have
a complete section in this document due to the complexity of those directories.
The operating system kernel image should be located in either / or /boot. Additional information on
kernel placement can be found in the section regarding /boot, below.
3.1 /bin : Essential user command binaries (for use by all users)
/bin contains commands that may be used by both the system administrator and by users, but which are
required when no other filesystems are mounted (e.g. in single user mode). It may also contain commands
which are used indirectly by scripts.
There should be no subdirectories within /bin.
Command binaries that are not essential enough to place into /bin should be placed in /usr/bin,
instead. Items that are required only by non-root users (the X Window System, chsh, etc.) are generally
not essential enough to be placed into the root partition.
Required files for /bin:

• General commands:
The following commands have been included because they are essential, except for a few commands
being present because of their traditional placement in /bin.
{ cat, chgrp, chmod, chown, cp, date, dd, df, dmesg, echo, ed,
false, kill, ln, login, ls, mkdir, mknod, more, mount, mv, ps,
pwd, rm, rmdir, sed, setserial, sh, stty, su, sync, true, umount,
uname }
If /bin/sh is Bash, then /bin/sh should be a symbolic or hard link to /bin/bash since Bash
behaves differently when called as sh or bash. pdksh, which may be the /bin/sh on install
disks, should likewise be arranged with /bin/sh being a symlink to /bin/ksh. The use of a
symbolic link in these cases allows users to easily see that /bin/sh is not a true Bourne shell.
The de-facto standard location of the C-shell is /bin/csh. A C-shell or equivalent (such as tcsh),
if available on the system, should be located at /bin/csh. /bin/csh may be a symbolic link to
/bin/tcsh or /usr/bin/tcsh.
Note: The [ and test commands are built into most commonly used Bourne shell (/bin/sh)
replacements. These two commands do not have to be placed in /bin; they may be placed in
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/usr/bin. They must be included as separate binaries with any UNIX or UNIX-like system
attempting to comply with the POSIX.2 standard.
• Restoration commands:
These commands have been added to make restoration of a system

possible (provided that / is intact).
{ tar, gzip, gunzip (link to gzip), zcat (link to gzip) }
If system backups are made using programs other than gzip and tar, then the root partition should
contain the minimal necessary restoration components. For instance, many systems should include
cpio as it is the next most commonly used backup utility after tar.
Conversely, if no restoration from the root partition is ever expected, then these binaries may be
omitted (e.g., a ROM chip root, mounting /usr through NFS). If restoration of a system is planned
through the network, then ftp or tftp (along with everything necessary to get an ftp connection)
should be available on the root partition.
Non-vital restoration commands may appear in either /bin or /usr/bin on different systems.
• Networking commands:
These are the only necessary networking binaries that both root and users will want or need to
execute other than the ones in /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin.
{ domainname, hostname, netstat, ping }
3.2 /boot : Static files of the boot loader

This directory contains everything required for the boot process except configuration files and the map
installer. Thus /boot stores data that is used before the kernel begins executing user-mode programs.
This may include saved master boot sectors, sector map files, and other data that is not directly edited by
hand. Programs necessary to arrange for the boot loader to be able to boot a file should be placed in
/sbin. Configuration files for boot loaders should be placed in /etc.
The operating system kernel should be located in either / or /boot.
Note: On some i386 machines, it may be necessary for /boot to be located on a separate partition located
completely below cylinder 1024 of the boot device due to hardware constraints.
Certain MIPS systems require a /boot partition that is a mounted MS-DOS filesystem or whatever other
filesystem type is accessible for the firmware. This may result in restrictions with respect to usable
filenames for /boot (only for affected systems).
3.3 /dev : Device files

The /dev directory is the location of special or device files.
If it is possible that devices in /dev will need to be manually created, /dev shall contain a command
named MAKEDEV, which can create devices as needed. It may also contain a MAKEDEV.local for any
local devices.
If required, MAKEDEV should have provisions for creating any device that may be found on the system, not
just those that a particular implementation installs.
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3.4 /etc : Host-specific system configuration

/etc contains configuration files and directories that are specific to the current system.
No binaries should be located under /etc.
/etc — Host-specific system configuration

X11 Configuration for the X Window System
opt Configuration for /opt
The following section is intended partly to illuminate the description of the contents of /etc with a
number of examples; it is definitely not an exhaustive list.
Required files for /etc:

• General files:
{ adjtime, csh.login, disktab, fdprm, fstab, gettydefs, group,
inittab, confissue, ld.so.conf, lilo.conf, motd, mtab, mtools,
passwd, profile, securetty, shells, syslog.conf, ttytype }
• Networking files:
{ exports, ftpusers, gateways, host.conf, hosts, hosts.allow,
hosts.deny, hosts.equiv, hosts.lpd, inetd.conf, networks,
printcap, protocols, resolv.conf, rpc, services }
Notes:
The setup of command scripts invoked at boot time may resemble System V or BSD models. Further
specification in this area may be added to a future version of this standard.
Systems that use the shadow password suite will have additional configuration files in /etc
(/etc/shadow and others) and programs in /usr/sbin (useradd, usermod, and others).
3.4.1 /etc/X11 : Configuration for the X Window System

/etc/X11 is the recommended location for all X11 host-specific configuration. This directory is
necessary to allow local control if /usr is mounted read only. Files that should be in this directory include
Xconfig (and/or XF86Config) and Xmodmap.
Subdirectories of /etc/X11 may include those for xdm and for any other programs (some window
managers, for example) that need them. We recommend that window managers with only one
configuration file which is a default .*wmrc file should name it system.*wmrc (unless there is a
widely-accepted alternative name) and not use a subdirectory. Any window manager subdirectories should
be identically named to the actual window manager binary.
/etc/X11/xdm holds the configuration files for xdm. These are most of the files normally found in
/usr/lib/X11/xdm. Some local variable data for xdm is stored in /var/lib/xdm.
3.4.2 /etc/opt : Configuration files for /opt

Host-specific configuration files for add-on application software packages shall be installed within the
directory /etc/opt/<package>, where <package> is the name of the subtree in /opt where the
static data from that package is stored. No structure is imposed on the internal arrangement of
/etc/opt/<package>.
If a configuration file must reside in a different location in order for the package or system to function
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properly, it may be placed in a location other than /etc/opt/<package>.
BEGIN RATIONALE
Refer to the rationale for /opt.
END RATIONALE
3.5 /home : User home directories (optional)

/home is a fairly standard concept, but it is clearly a site-specific filesystem. The setup will differ from
host to host. This section describes only a suggested placement for user home directories; nevertheless we
recommend that all FHS-compliant distributions use this as the default location for home directories.
On small systems, each user’s directory is typically one of the many subdirectories of /home such as
/home/smith, /home/torvalds, /home/operator, etc.
On large systems (especially when the /home directories are shared amongst many hosts using NFS) it is
useful to subdivide user home directories. Subdivision may be accomplished by using subdirectories such
as /home/staff, /home/guests, /home/students, etc.
Different people prefer to place user accounts in a variety of places. Therefore, no program should rely on
this location. If you want to find out a user’s home directory, you should use the getpwent(3) library
function rather than relying on /etc/passwd because user information may be stored remotely using
systems such as NIS.
3.6 /lib : Essential shared libraries and kernel modules

The /lib directory contains those shared library images needed to boot the system and run the commands
in the root filesystem.
/lib — essential shared libraries and kernel modules

modules Loadable kernel modules
This includes /lib/libc.so.*, /lib/libm.so.*, the shared dynamic linker /lib/ld.so, and
other shared libraries required by binaries in /bin and /sbin.
Shared libraries that are only necessary for binaries in /usr (such as any X Window binaries) do not
belong in /lib. Only the shared libraries required to run binaries in /bin and /sbin should be here.
The library libm.so.* may also be placed in /usr/lib if it is not required by anything in /bin or
/sbin.
For compatibility reasons, /lib/cpp needs to exist as a reference to the C preprocessor installed on the
system. The usual placement of this binary is /usr/lib/gcc-lib/<target>/<version>/cpp.
/lib/cpp can either point at this binary, or at any other reference to this binary which exists in the
filesystem. (For example, /usr/bin/cpp is also often used.)
The specification for /lib/modules is forthcoming.
3.7 /mnt : Mount point for temporarily mounted filesystems

This directory is provided so that the system administrator may temporarily mount filesystems as needed.
The content of this directory is a local issue and should not affect the manner in which any program is run.
We recommend against the use of this directory by installation programs, and suggest that a suitable
temporary directory not in use by the system should be used instead.
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3.8 /opt : Add-on application software packages

/opt — Add-on application software packages
<package> Static package objects
/opt is reserved for the installation of add-on application software packages.
A package to be installed in /opt shall locate its static files in a separate /opt/<package> directory
tree, where <package> is a name that describes the software package.
Programs to be invoked by users shall be located in the directory /opt/<package>/bin. If the package
includes UNIX manual pages, they shall be located in /opt/<package>/man and the same substructure
as /usr/share/man shall be used.
The directories /opt/bin, /opt/doc, /opt/include, /opt/info, /opt/lib, and /opt/man
are reserved for local system administrator use. Packages may provide "front-end" files intended to be
placed in (by linking or copying) these reserved directories by the local system administrator, but shall
function normally in the absence of these reserved directories.
Package files that are variable (change in normal operation) should be installed in /var/opt. See the
section on /var/opt for more information.
Host-specific configuration files should be installed in /etc/opt. See the section on /etc for more
information.
No other package files should exist outside the /opt, /var/opt, and /etc/opt hierarchies except for
those package files that must reside in specific locations within the filesystem tree in order to function
properly. For example, device lock files must be placed in /var/lock and devices must be located in
/dev.
Distributions may install software in /opt, but should not modify or delete software installed by the local
system administrator without the assent of the local system administrator.
BEGIN RATIONALE
The use of /opt for add-on software is a well-established practice in the UNIX community. The System
V Application Binary Interface [AT&T 1990], based on the System V Interface Definition (Third Edition),
provides for an /opt structure very similar to the one defined here.
The Intel Binary Compatibility Standard v. 2 (iBCS2) also provides a similar structure for /opt.
Generally, all data required to support a package on a system should be present within
/opt/<package>, including files intended to be copied into /etc/opt/<package> and
/var/opt/<package> as well as reserved directories in /opt.
The minor restrictions on distributions using /opt are necessary because conflicts are possible between
distribution-installed and locally-installed software, especially in the case of fixed pathnames found in some
binary software.
END RATIONALE
3.9 /root : Home directory for the root user (optional)

/ is traditionally the home directory of the root account on UNIX systems. /root is used on many Linux
systems and on some UNIX systems (in order to reduce clutter in the / directory). The root account’s
home directory may be determined by developer or local preference. Obvious possibilities include /,
/root, and /home/root.
If the home directory of the root account is not stored on the root partition it will be necessary to make
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certain it will default to / if it can not be located.

Note: we recommend against using the root account for mundane things such as mail and news, and that it
be used solely for system administration. For this reason, we recommend that subdirectories such as Mail
and News not appear in the root account’s home directory, and that mail for administration roles such as
root, postmaster and webmaster be forwarded to an appropriate user.
3.10 /sbin : System binaries (binaries once kept in /etc)

Utilities used for system administration (and other root-only commands) are stored in /sbin,
/usr/sbin, and /usr/local/sbin. /sbin typically contains binaries essential for booting the
system in addition to the binaries in /bin. Anything executed after /usr is known to be mounted (when
there are no problems) should be placed into /usr/sbin. Local-only system administration binaries
should be placed into /usr/local/sbin.
Deciding what things go into "sbin" directories is simple: If a normal (not a system administrator) user
will ever run it directly, then it should be placed in one of the "bin" directories. Ordinary users should
not have to place any of the sbin directories in their path.
Note: For example, files such as chfn which users only occasionally use should still be placed in
/usr/bin. ping, although it is absolutely necessary for root (network recovery and diagnosis) is often
used by users and should live in /bin for that reason.
We recommend that users have read and execute permission for everything in /sbin except, perhaps,
certain setuid and setgid programs. The division between /bin and /sbin was not created for security
reasons or to prevent users from seeing the operating system, but to provide a good partition between
binaries that everyone uses and ones that are primarily used for administration tasks. There is no inherent
security advantage in making /sbin off-limits for users.
Required files for /sbin:

• General commands:
{ hwclock, getty, init, update, mkswap, swapon, swapoff }
• Shutdown commands:
{ fastboot, fasthalt, halt, reboot, shutdown }
(Or any combination of the above, so long as shutdown is included.)
• Filesystem management commands:
{ fdisk, fsck, fsck.*, mkfs, mkfs.* }
* = one or more of ext, ext2, minix, msdos, xia and perhaps others
• Networking commands:
{ ifconfig, route }
3.11 /tmp : Temporary files

The /tmp directory shall be made available for programs that require temporary files.
Although data stored in /tmp may be deleted in a site-specific manner, it is recommended that files and
directories located in /tmp be deleted whenever the system is booted.
Programs shall not assume that any files or directories in /tmp are preserved between invocations of the
program.
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BEGIN RATIONALE
IEEE standard P1003.2 (POSIX, part 2) makes requirements that are similar to the above section.
FHS added the recommendation that /tmp be cleaned at boot time on the basis of historical precedent and
common practice, but did not make it a requirement because system administration is not within the scope
of this standard.
END RATIONALE
- 15 -
4. The /usr Hierarchy

/usr is the second major section of the filesystem. /usr is shareable, read-only data. That means that
/usr should be shareable between various hosts running FHS-compliant and should not be written to.
Any information that is host-specific or varies with time is stored elsewhere.
No large software packages should use a direct subdirectory under the /usr hierarchy. An exception is
made for the X Window System because of considerable precedent and widely-accepted practice. This
section of the standard specifies the location for most such packages.
/usr — Secondary Hierarchy

X11R6 X Window System, version 11 release 6
bin Most user commands
games Games and educational binaries
include Header files included by C programs
lib Libraries
local Local hierarchy (empty after main installation)
sbin Non-vital system binaries
share Architecture-independent data
src Source code
The following symbolic links to directories may be present. This possibility is based on the need to
preserve compatibility with older systems until all implementations can be assumed to use the /var
hierarchy.
/usr/spool -> /var/spool
/usr/tmp -> /var/tmp
/usr/spool/locks -> /var/lock
Once a system no longer requires any one of the above symbolic links, the link may be removed, if desired.
4.1 /usr/X11R6 : X Window System, Version 11 Release 6

This hierarchy is reserved for the X Window System, version 11 release 6, and related files.
To simplify matters and make XFree86 more compatible with the X Window System on other systems, the
following symbolic links should be present:
/usr/bin/X11 -> /usr/X11R6/bin
/usr/lib/X11 -> /usr/X11R6/lib/X11
/usr/include/X11 -> /usr/X11R6/include/X11
In general, software should not be installed or managed via the above symbolic links. They are intended
for utilization by users only. The difficulty is related to the release version of the X Window System — in
transitional periods, it is impossible to know what release of X11 is in use.
Host-specific data in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11 should be interpreted as a demonstration file. Applications
requiring information about the current host (from files such as Xconfig, XF86Config, or
system.twmrc) must reference a configuration file in /etc/X11, which may be linked to a file in
/usr/X11R6/lib.
4.2 /usr/bin : Most user commands

This is the primary directory of executable commands on the system.
- 16 -
/usr/bin — Binaries that are not needed in single-user mode

mh Commands for the MH mail handling system
X11 Symlink to /usr/X11R6/bin
Because shell script interpreters (invoked with #!<path> on the first line of a shell script) cannot rely on
a path, it is advantageous to standardize their locations. The Bourne shell and C-shell interpreters are
already fixed in /bin, but Perl, Python, and Tcl are often found in many different places.
/usr/bin/perl, /usr/bin/python, and /usr/bin/tcl should reference the perl, python,
and tcl shell interpreters, respectively. They may be symlinks to the physical location of the shell
interpreters.
4.3 /usr/include : Directory for standard include files.

This is where all of the system’s general-use include files for the C and C++ programming languages
should be placed.
/usr/include — Include files

X11 Symlink to /usr/X11R6/include/X11
bsd BSD compatibility include files (if required)
g++ GNU C++ include files
4.4 /usr/lib : Libraries for programming and packages

/usr/lib includes object files, libraries, and internal binaries that are not intended to be executed directly
by users or shell scripts.
Applications may use a single subdirectory under /usr/lib. If an application uses a subdirectory, all
architecture-dependent data exclusively used by the application should be placed within that subdirectory.
For example, the perl5 subdirectory for Perl 5 modules and libraries.
Miscellaneous architecture-independent application-specific static files and subdirectories should be placed
in /usr/share.
Some executable commands such as makewhatis and sendmail have also been traditionally placed in
/usr/lib. makewhatis is an internal binary and should be placed in a binary directory; users access
only catman. Newer sendmail binaries are now placed by default in /usr/sbin; a symbolic link
should remain from /usr/lib. Additionally, systems using a sendmail-compatible mail transport
agent should provide /usr/sbin/sendmail as a symbolic link to the appropriate executable.
A symbolic link /usr/lib/X11 pointing to the lib/X11 directory of the default X distribution is
required if X is installed.
Note: No host-specific data for the X Window System should be stored in /usr/lib/X11. Host-specific
configuration files such as Xconfig or XF86Config should be stored in /etc/X11. This should
include configuration data such as system.twmrc even if it is only made a symbolic link to a more
global configuration file (probably in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11).
4.5 /usr/local : Local hierarchy

The /usr/local hierarchy is for use by the system administrator when installing software locally. It
needs to be safe from being overwritten when the system software is updated. It may be used for programs
and data that are shareable amongst a group of hosts, but not found in /usr.
- 17 -
/usr/local — Local hierarchy

bin Local binaries
games Local game binaries
include Local C header files
lib Local libraries
sbin Local system binaries
share Local architecture-independent hierarchy
src Local source code
This directory should always be empty after first installing a FHS-compliant system. No exceptions to this
rule should be made other than the listed directory stubs.
Locally installed software should be placed within /usr/local rather than /usr unless it is being
installed to replace or upgrade software in /usr.
Note that software placed in / or /usr may be overwritten by system upgrades (though we recommend
that distributions do not overwrite data in /etc under these circumstances). For this reason, local software
should not be placed outside of /usr/local without good reason.
4.6 /usr/sbin : Non-essential standard system binaries

This directory contains any non-essential binaries used exclusively by the system administrator. System
administration programs that are required for system repair, system recovery, mounting /usr, or other
essential functions should be placed in /sbin instead.
Typically, /usr/sbin contains networking daemons, any non-essential administration tools, and binaries
for non-critical server programs.
These server programs are used when entering the System V states known as "run level 2" (multi-user state)
and "run level 3" (networked state) or the BSD state known as "multi-user mode". At this point the system
is making services available to users (e.g., printer support) and to other hosts (e.g., NFS exports).
Locally installed system administration programs should be placed in /usr/local/sbin.
4.7 /usr/share : Architecture-independent data

/usr/share — Architecture-independent data
dict Word lists
doc Miscellaneous documentation
games Static data files for /usr/games
info GNU Info system’s primary directory
locale Locale information
man Online manuals
nls Native language support
misc Miscellaneous architecture-independent data
terminfo Directories for terminfo database
tmac troff macros not distributed with groff
zoneinfo Timezone information and configuration
The /usr/share hierarchy is for all read-only architecture independent data files. Much of this data
originally lived in /usr (man, doc) or /usr/lib (dict, terminfo, zoneinfo). This hierarchy is
intended to be shareable among all architecture platforms of a given OS; thus, for example, a site with i386,
Alpha, and PPC platforms might maintain a single /usr/share directory that is centrally-mounted.
Note, however, that /usr/share is generally not intended to be shared by different OSes or by different
releases of the same OS.
- 18 -
Any program or package which contains or requires data that doesn’t need to be modified should store that
data in /usr/share (or /usr/local/share, if installed locally). It is recommended that a
subdirectory be used in /usr/share for this purpose.
Note that Linux currently uses DBM-format database files. While these are not architecture-independent,
they are allowed in /usr/share in anticipation of a switch to the architecture-independent DB 2.0
format.
Game data stored in /usr/share/games should be purely static data. Any modifiable files, such as
score files, game play logs, and so forth, should be placed in /var/games.
It is recommended that application-specific, architecture-independent directories be placed here. Such
directories include groff, perl, ghostscript, texmf, and kbd (Linux) or syscons (BSD). They
may, however, be placed in /usr/lib for backwards compatibility, at the distributor’s discretion.
Similarly, a /usr/lib/games hierarchy may be used in addition to the /usr/share/games
hierarchy if the distributor wishes to place some game data there.
4.7.1 /usr/share/dict : Word lists
Recommended files for /usr/share/dict:

{ words }
Traditionally this directory contains only the English words file, which is used by look(1) and various
spelling programs. words may use either American or British spelling. Sites that require both may link
words to /usr/share/dict/american-english or
/usr/share/dict/british-english.
Word lists for other languages may be added using the English name for that language, e.g.,
/usr/share/dict/french, /usr/share/dict/danish, etc. These should, if possible, use an
ISO 8859 character set which is appropriate for the language in question; if possible the Latin1 (ISO
8859-1) character set should be used (this is often not possible).
Other word lists, such as the web2 "dictionary" should be included here, if present.
BEGIN RATIONALE
The reason that only word lists are located here is that they are the only files common to all spell checkers.
END RATIONALE
4.7.2 /usr/share/man : Manual pages

This section details the organization for manual pages throughout the system, including
/usr/share/man. Also refer to the section on /var/cache/man.
Manual pages are stored in <mandir>/<locale>/man<section>/<arch>. An explanation of
<mandir>, <locale>, <section>, and <arch> is given below.
- 19 -
<mandir>/<locale> — A manual page hierarchy

man1 User programs
man2 System calls
man3 Library calls
man4 Special files
man5 File formats
man6 Games
man7 Miscellaneous
man8 System administration
The primary <mandir> of the system is /usr/share/man. /usr/share/man contains manual
information for commands and data under the / and /usr filesystems. Obviously, there are no manual
pages in / because they are not required at boot time nor are they required in emergencies.
The component <section> describes the manual section.
Provisions must be made in the structure of /usr/share/man to support manual pages which are
written in different (or multiple) languages. These provisions must take into account the storage and
reference of these manual pages. Relevant factors include language (including geographical-based
differences), and character code set.
This naming of language subdirectories of /usr/share/man is based on Appendix E of the POSIX
1003.1 standard which describes the locale identification string — the most well-accepted method to
describe a cultural environment. The <locale> string is:
<language>[_<territory>][.<character-set>][,<version>]
The <language> field shall be taken from ISO 639 (a code for the representation of names of languages).
It shall be two characters wide and specified with lowercase letters only.
The <territory> field shall be the two-letter code of ISO 3166 (a specification of representations of
countries), if possible. (Most people are familiar with the two-letter codes used for the country codes in
email addresses.1) It shall be two characters wide and specified with uppercase letters only.
The <character-set> field should represent the standard describing the character set. If the
<character-set> field is just a numeric specification, the number represents the number of the
international standard describing the character set. It is recommended that this be a numeric representation
if possible (ISO standards, especially), not include additional punctuation symbols, and that any letters be
in lowercase.
A parameter specifying a <version> of the profile may be placed after the <character-set> field,
delimited by a comma. This may be used to discriminate between different cultural needs; for instance,
dictionary order versus a more systems-oriented collating order. This standard recommends not using the
<version> field, unless it is necessary.
Systems which use a unique language and code set for all manual pages may omit the <locale>
substring and store all manual pages in <mandir>. For example, systems which only have English
manual pages coded with ASCII, may store manual pages (the man<section> directories) directly in
/usr/share/man. (That is the traditional circumstance and arrangement, in fact.)
Countries for which there is a well-accepted standard character code set may omit the
<character-set> field, but it is strongly recommended that it be included, especially for countries
with several competing standards.
Various examples:
1. A major exception to this rule is the United Kingdom, which is ‘GB’ in the ISO 3166, but ‘UK’ for most email addresses.
- 20 -
Language Territory Character Set Directory

English — ASCII /usr/share/man/en
English United Kingdom ASCII /usr/share/man/en_GB
English United States ASCII /usr/share/man/en_US
French Canada ISO 8859-1 /usr/share/man/fr_CA
French France ISO 8859-1 /usr/share/man/fr_FR
German Germany ISO 646 /usr/share/man/de_DE.646
German Germany ISO 6937 /usr/share/man/de_DE.6937
German Germany ISO 8859-1 /usr/share/man/de_DE.88591
German Switzerland ISO 646 /usr/share/man/de_CH.646
Japanese Japan JIS /usr/share/man/ja_JP.jis
Japanese Japan SJIS /usr/share/man/ja_JP.sjis
Japanese Japan UJIS (or EUC-J) /usr/share/man/ja_JP.ujis
Similarly, provision must be made for manual pages which are architecture-dependent, such as
documentation on device-drivers or low-level system administration commands. These should be placed
under an <arch> directory in the appropriate man<section> directory; for example, a man page for the
i386 ctrlaltdel(8) command might be placed in
/usr/share/man/<locale>/man8/i386/ctrlaltdel.8.
Manual pages for commands and data under /usr/local are stored in /usr/local/man. Manual
pages for X11R6 are stored in /usr/X11R6/man. It follows that all manual page hierarchies in the
system should have the same structure as /usr/share/man. Empty directories may be omitted from a
manual page hierarchy. For example, if /usr/local/man has no manual pages in section 4 (Devices),
then /usr/local/man/man4 may be omitted.
The cat page sections (cat<section>) containing formatted manual page entries are also found within
subdirectories of <mandir>/<locale>, but are not required nor should they be distributed in lieu of
nroff source manual pages.
The numbered sections "1" through "8" are traditionally defined. In general, the file name for manual pages
located within a particular section end with .<section>.
In addition, some large sets of application-specific manual pages have an additional suffix appended to the
manual page filename. For example, the MH mail handling system manual pages should have mh appended
to all MH manuals. All X Window System manual pages should have an x appended to the filename.
The practice of placing various language manual pages in appropriate subdirectories of
/usr/share/man also applies to the other manual page hierarchies, such as /usr/local/man and
/usr/X11R6/man. (This portion of the standard also applies later in the section on the optional
/var/cache/man structure.)
A description of each section follows:
• man1: User programs
Manual pages that describe publicly accessible commands are contained in this chapter. Most
program documentation that a user will need to use is located here.
• man2: System calls
This section describes all of the system calls (requests for the kernel to perform operations).
• man3: Library functions and subroutines
Section 3 describes program library routines that are not direct calls to kernel services. This and
chapter 2 are only really of interest to programmers.
- 21 -
• man4: Special files

Section 4 describes the special files, related driver functions, and networking support available in the
system. Typically, this includes the device files found in /dev and the kernel interface to networking
protocol support.
• man5: File formats
The formats for many nonintuitive data files are documented in the section 5. This includes various
include files, program output files, and system files.
• man6: Games
This chapter documents games, demos, and generally trivial programs. Different people have various
notions about how essential this is.
• man7: Miscellaneous
Manual pages that are difficult to classify are designated as being section 7. The troff and other text
processing macro packages are found here.
• man8: System administration
Programs used by system administrators for system operation and maintenance are documented here.
Some of these programs are also occasionally useful for normal users.
4.7.3 /usr/share/misc : Miscellaneous architecture-independent data

This directory contains miscellaneous architecture-independent files which don’t require a separate
subdirectory under /usr/share. It is a required directory under /usr/share.
The following files, if present, should be located under /usr/share/misc:
{ ascii, magic, termcap, termcap.db }
Other (application-specific) files may appear here, but a distributor may place them in /usr/lib at their
discretion. Some such files include:
{ airport, birthtoken, eqnchar, getopt, gprof.callg, gprof.flat,
inter.phone, ipfw.samp.filters, ipfw.samp.scripts, keycap.pcvt,
mail.help, mail.tildehelp, man.template, map3270, mdoc.template,
more.help, na.phone, nslookup.help, operator, scsi_modes, sendmail.hf,
style, units.lib, vgrindefs, vgrindefs.db, zipcodes }
4.8 /usr/src : Source code

Any non-local source code should be placed in this subdirectory.
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5. The /var Hierarchy

/var — Variable data
account Process accounting logs (if supported)
cache Application cache data
crash System crash dumps (if supported)
games Variable game data
lib Variable state information
lock Lock files
log Log files and directories
mail User mailbox files
opt Variable data for /opt
run Data relevant to running processes
spool Application spool data
tmp Temporary files preserved between system reboots
yp Network Information Service (NIS) database files
/var contains variable data files. This includes spool directories and files, administrative and logging
data, and transient and temporary files.
Some portions of /var are not shareable between different systems. For instance, /var/log,
/var/lock, and /var/run. Other portions may be shared, notably /var/mail,
/var/cache/man, /var/cache/fonts, and /var/spool/news.
/var is specified here in order to make it possible to mount /usr read-only. Everything that once went
into /usr that is written to during system operation (as opposed to installation and software maintenance)
must be in /var.
If /var cannot be made a separate partition, it is often preferable to move /var out of the root partition
and into the /usr partition. (This is sometimes done to reduce the size of the root partition or when space
runs low in the root partition.) However, /var should not be linked to /usr because this makes
separation of /usr and /var more difficult and is likely to create a naming conflict. Instead, link /var
to /usr/var.
Applications should generally not add directories to the top level of /var. Such directories should only be
added if they have some system-wide implication, and in consultation with the FHS mailing list.
The cache, lock, log, run, spool, lib, and tmp directories must be included and used in all
distributions; the account, crash, games, mail, and yp directories must be included and used if the
corresponding applications or features are provided in the distribution.
Several directories are ‘reserved’ in the sense that they should not be used arbitrarily by some new
application, since they would conflict with historical and/or local practice. They are:
/var/backups
/var/cron
/var/lib
/var/local
/var/msgs
/var/preserve
5.1 /var/account : Process accounting logs (if supported)

This directory holds the current active process accounting log and the composite process usage data (as
used in some UNIX-like systems by lastcomm and sa).
- 23 -
5.2 /var/cache : Application cache data

/var/cache — Cache directories
fonts Locally-generated fonts
man Locally-formatted manual pages
www WWW proxy or cache data
<package> Package specific cache data
/var/cache is intended for cached data from applications. Such data is locally generated as a result of
time-consuming I/O or calculation. The application must be able to regenerate or restore the data. Unlike
/var/spool, the cached files can be deleted without data loss. The data should remain valid between
invocations of the application and rebooting the system.
Files located under /var/cache may be expired in an application specific manner, by the system
administrator, or both. The application should always be able to recover from manual deletion of these files
(generally because of a disk space shortage). No other requirements are made on the data format of the
cache directories.
BEGIN RATIONALE
The existence of a separate directory for cached data allows system administrators to set different disk and
backup policies from other directories in /var.
END RATIONALE
5.2.1 /var/cache/fonts : Locally-generated fonts

The directory /var/cache/fonts should be used to store any dynamically-created fonts. In particular,
all of the fonts which are automatically generated by mktexpk should be located in appropriately-named
subdirectories of /var/cache/fonts.
Note: this standard does not currently incorporate the TEX Directory Structure (a document that describes
the layout TEX files and directories), but it may be useful reading. It is located at
ftp://ctan.tug.org/tex/.
Other dynamically created fonts may also be placed in this tree, under
appropriately-named subdirectories of /var/cache/fonts.
5.2.2 /var/cache/man : Locally-formatted manual pages (optional)

This directory provides a standard location for sites that provide a read-only /usr partition, but wish to
allow caching of locally-formatted man pages. Sites that mount /usr as writable (e.g., single-user
installations) may choose not to use /var/cache/man and may write formatted man pages into the
cat<section> directories in /usr/share/man directly. We recommend that most sites use one of
the following options instead:
• Preformat all manual pages alongside the unformatted versions.
• Allow no caching of formatted man pages, and require formatting to be done each time a man page is
brought up.
• Allow local caching of formatted man pages in /var/cache/man.
The structure of /var/cache/man needs to reflect both the fact of multiple man page hierarchies and the
possibility of multiple language support.
Given an unformatted manual page that normally appears in
<path>/man/<locale>/man<section>, the directory to place formatted man pages in is
- 24 -
/var/cache/man/<catpath>/<locale>/cat<section>, where <catpath> is derived from

<path> by removing any leading usr and/or trailing share pathname components. (Note that the
<locale> component may be missing.)
For example, /usr/share/man/man1/ls.1 is formatted into /var/cache/man/cat1/ls.1,
and /usr/X11R6/man/<locale>/man3/XtClass.3x into
/var/cache/man/X11R6/<locale>/cat3/XtClass.3x.
Man pages written to /var/cache/man may eventually be transferred to the appropriate preformatted
directories in the source man hierarchy or expired; likewise formatted man pages in the source man
hierarchy may be expired if they are not accessed for a period of time.
If preformatted manual pages come with a system on read-only media (a CD-ROM, for instance), they shall
be installed in the source man hierarchy (e.g. /usr/share/man/cat<section>).
/var/cache/man is reserved as a writable cache for formatted manual pages.
BEGIN RATIONALE
Release 1.2 of the standard specified /var/catman for this hierarchy. The path has been moved under
/var/cache to better reflect the dynamic nature of the formatted man pages. The directory name has
been changed to man to allow for enhancing the hierarchy to include post-processed formats other than
"cat", such as PostScript, HTML, or DVI.
END RATIONALE
5.3 /var/crash : System crash dumps (if supported)

This directory holds system crash dumps. As of the date of this release of the standard, system crash
dumps were not supported under Linux.
5.4 /var/games : Variable game data

Any variable data relating to games in /usr should be placed here. /var/games should hold the
variable data previously found in /usr; static data, such as help text, level descriptions, and so on, should
remain elsewhere, such as /usr/share/games.
BEGIN RATIONALE
/var/games has been given a hierarchy of its own, rather than leaving it merged in with the old
/var/lib as in release 1.2. The separation allows local control of backup strategies, permissions, and
disk usage, as well as allowing inter-host sharing and reducing clutter in /var/lib. Additionally,
/var/games is the path traditionally used by BSD.
END RATIONALE
5.5 /var/lib : Variable state information

/var/lib — Variable state information
<editor> Editor backup files and state
misc Miscellaneous state data
xdm X display manager variable data
<pkgtool> Packaging support files
<package> State data for packages and subsystems
This hierarchy holds state information pertaining to an application or the system. State information is data
that programs modify while they run, and that pertains to one specific host. Users should never need to
- 25 -
modify files in /var/lib to configure a package’s operation.

State information is generally used to preserve the condition of an application (or a group of inter-related
applications) between invocations and between different instances of the same application. State
information should generally remain valid after a reboot, should not be logging output, and should not be
spooled data.
An application (or a group of inter-related applications) should use a subdirectory of /var/lib for its
data. There is one required subdirectory, /var/lib/misc, which is intended for state files that don’t
need a subdirectory; the other subdirectories should only be present if the application in question is
included in the distribution.
/var/lib/<name> is the location that should be used for all distribution packaging support. Different
distributions may use different names, of course.
An important difference between this version of this standard and previous ones is that applications are now
required to use a subdirectory of /var/lib.
5.5.1 /var/lib/<editor> : Editor backup files and state

These directories contain saved files generated by any unexpected termination of an editor (e.g., elvis, jove,
nvi).
Other editors may not require a directory for crash-recovery files, but may require a well-defined place to
store other information while the editor is running. This information should be stored in a subdirectory
under /var/lib (for example, GNU Emacs would place lock files in /var/lib/emacs/lock).
Future editors may require additional state information beyond crash-recovery files and lock files — this
information should also be placed under /var/lib/<editor>.
BEGIN RATIONALE
Previous Linux releases, as well as all commercial vendors, use /var/preserve for vi or its clones.
However, each editor uses its own format for these crash-recovery files, so a separate directory is needed for
each editor.
Editor-specific lock files are usually quite different from the device or resource lock files that are stored in
/var/lock and, hence, are stored under /var/lib.
END RATIONALE
5.5.2 /var/lib/misc : Miscellaneous variable data

This directory contains variable data not placed in a subdirectory in /var/lib. An attempt should be
made to use relatively unique names in this directory to avoid namespace conflicts.
Note that this hierarchy should contain files stored in /var/db in current BSD releases. These include
locate.database and mountdtab, and the kernel symbol database(s).
5.6 /var/lock : Lock files

Lock files should be stored within the /var/lock directory structure.
Device lock files, such as the serial device lock files that were originally found in either
/usr/spool/locks or /usr/spool/uucp, must now be stored in /var/lock. The naming
convention which must be used is LCK.. followed by the base name of the device file. For example, to
lock /dev/cua0 the file LCK..cua0 would be created.
- 26 -
The format used for device lock files must be the HDB UUCP lock file format. The HDB format is to store
the process identifier (PID) as a ten byte ASCII decimal number, with a trailing newline. For example, if
process 1230 holds a lock file, it would contain the eleven characters: space, space, space, space, space,
space, one, two, three, zero, and newline.
Then, anything wishing to use /dev/cua0 can read the lock file and act accordingly (all locks in
/var/lock should be world-readable).
5.7 /var/log : Log files and directories

This directory contains miscellaneous log files. Most logs should be written to this directory or an
appropriate subdirectory.
lastlog record of last login of each user

messages system messages from syslogd
wtmp record of all logins and logouts
5.8 /var/mail : User mailbox files

The mail spool must be accessible through /var/mail and the mail spool files must take the form
<username>. /var/mail may be a symbolic link to another directory.
User mailbox files in this location should be stored in the standard UNIX mailbox format.
BEGIN RATIONALE
The logical location for this directory was changed from /var/spool/mail in order to bring FHS in-
line with nearly every UNIX implementation. This change is important for inter-operability since a single
/var/mail is often shared between multiple hosts and multiple UNIX implementations (despite NFS
locking issues).
It is important to note that there is no requirement to physically move the mail spool to this location.
However, programs and header files should be changed to use /var/mail.
END RATIONALE
5.9 /var/opt : Variable data for /opt

Variable data of the packages in /opt should be installed in /var/opt/<package>, where
<package> is the name of the subtree in /opt where the static data from an add-on software package is
stored, except where superseded by another file in /etc. No structure is imposed on the internal
arrangement of /var/opt/<package>.
BEGIN RATIONALE
Refer to the rationale for /opt.
END RATIONALE
5.10 /var/run : Run-time variable data

This directory contains system information data describing the system since it was booted. Files under this
directory should be cleared (removed or truncated as appropriate) at the beginning of the boot process.
Programs may have a subdirectory of /var/run; this is encouraged for programs that use more than one
run-time file.
Note: programs that run as non-root users may be unable to create files under /var/run and therefore
- 27 -
need a subdirectory owned by the appropriate user.

Process identifier (PID) files, which were originally placed in /etc, should be placed in /var/run. The
naming convention for PID files is <program-name>.pid. For example, the crond PID file is named
/var/run/crond.pid.
The internal format of PID files remains unchanged. The file should consist of the process identifier in
ASCII-encoded decimal, followed by a newline character. For example, if crond was process number 25,
/var/run/crond.pid would contain three characters: two, five, and newline.
Programs that read PID files should be somewhat flexible in what they accept; i.e., they should ignore extra
whitespace, leading zeroes, absence of the trailing newline, or additional lines in the PID file. Programs
that create PID files should use the simple specification located in the above paragraph.
The utmp file, which stores information about who is currently using the system, is located in this
directory.
Programs that maintain transient UNIX-domain sockets should place them in this directory.
5.11 /var/spool : Application spool data

/var/spool — Spool directories
lpd Printer spool directory
mqueue Outgoing mail queue
news News spool directory
rwho Rwhod files
uucp Spool directory for UUCP
/var/spool contains data which is awaiting some kind of later processing. Data in /var/spool
represents work to be done in the future (by a program, user, or administrator); often data is deleted after it
has been processed.
UUCP lock files must be placed in /var/lock. See the above section on /var/lock.
5.11.1 /var/spool/lpd : Line-printer daemon print queues

/var/spool/lpd — Printer spool directory
<printer> Spools for a specific printer (optional)
The lock file for lpd, lpd.lock, should be placed in /var/spool/lpd. It is suggested that the lock
file for each printer be placed in the spool directory for that specific printer and named lock.
5.11.2 /var/spool/rwho : Rwhod files

This directory holds the rwhod information for other systems on the local net.
BEGIN RATIONALE
Some BSD releases use /var/rwho for this data; given its historical location in /var/spool on other
systems and its approximate fit to the definition of ‘spooled’ data, this location was deemed more
appropriate.
END RATIONALE
- 28 -
5.12 /var/tmp : Temporary files preserved between system reboots

The /var/tmp directory is made available for programs that require temporary files or directories that are
preserved between system reboots. Therefore, data stored in /var/tmp is more persistent than data in
/tmp.
Files and directories located in /var/tmp must not be deleted when the system is booted. Although data
stored in /var/tmp is typically deleted in a site-specific manner, it is recommended that deletions occur
at a less frequent interval than /tmp.
5.13 /var/yp : Network Information Service (NIS) database files

Variable data for the Network Information Service (NIS), formerly known as the Sun Yellow Pages (YP),
shall be placed in this directory.
BEGIN RATIONALE
/var/yp is the standard directory for NIS (YP) data and is almost exclusively used in NIS documentation
and systems.
NIS should not be confused with Sun NIS+, which uses a different directory, /var/nis.
END RATIONALE
- 29 -
6. Operating System Specific Annex

This section is for additional requirements and recommendations that only apply to a specific operating
system. The material in this section should never conflict with the base standard.
6.1 Linux
This is the annex for the Linux operating system.
6.1.1 / : Root directory

On Linux systems, if the kernel is located in /, we recommend using the names vmlinux or vmlinuz,
which have been used in recent Linux kernel source packages.
6.1.2 /dev : Devices and special files

All devices and special files in /dev should adhere to the Linux Allocated Devices document, which is
available with the Linux kernel source. It is maintained by H. Peter Anvin <[email protected]>.
Symbolic links in /dev should not be distributed with Linux systems except as provided in the Linux
Allocated Devices document.
BEGIN RATIONALE
The requirement not to make symlinks promiscuously is made because local setups will often differ from
that on the distributor’s development machine. Also, if a distribution install script configures the symbolic
links at install time, these symlinks will often not get updated if local changes are made in hardware. When
used responsibly at a local level, however, they can be put to good use.
END RATIONALE
6.1.3 /proc : Kernel and process information virtual filesystem

The proc filesystem is the de-facto standard Linux method for handling process and system information,
rather than /dev/kmem and other similar methods. We strongly encourage this for the storage and
retrieval of process information as well as other kernel and memory information.
6.1.4 /sbin : Essential system binaries

Linux systems place these additional files into /sbin.
• Second extended filesystem commands (optional):
{ badblocks, dumpe2fs, e2fsck, mke2fs, mklost+found, tune2fs }
• Boot-loader map installer:
{ lilo }
Optional files for /sbin:

• Static binaries:
{ ldconfig, sln, ssync }

Static ln (sln) and static sync (ssync) are useful when things go wrong. The primary use of
sln (to repair incorrect symlinks in /lib after a poorly orchestrated upgrade) is no longer a major
- 30 -
concern now that the ldconfig program (usually located in /usr/sbin) exists and can act as a
guiding hand in upgrading the dynamic libraries. Static sync is useful in some emergency
situations. Note that these need not be statically linked versions of the standard ln and sync, but
may be.
The ldconfig binary is optional for /sbin since a site may choose to run ldconfig at boot
time, rather than only when upgrading the shared libraries. (It’s not clear whether or not it is
advantageous to run ldconfig on each boot.) Even so, some people like ldconfig around for
the following (all too common) situation:
(1) I’ve just removed /lib/<file>.
(2) I can’t find out the name of the library because ls is dynamically linked, I’m using a shell
that doesn’t have ls built-in, and I don’t know about using "echo *" as a replacement.
(3) I have a static sln, but I don’t know what to call the link.
• Miscellaneous:
{ ctrlaltdel, kbdrate }
So as to cope with the fact that some keyboards come up with such a high repeat rate as to be
unusable, kbdrate may be installed in /sbin on some systems.
Since the default action in the kernel for the Ctrl-Alt-Del key combination is an instant hard reboot, it
is generally advisable to disable the behavior before mounting the root filesystem in read-write mode.
Some init suites are able to disable Ctrl-Alt-Del, but others may require the ctrlaltdel
program, which may be installed in /sbin on those systems.
6.1.5 /usr/include : Header files included by C programs

These symbolic links are required if a C or C++ compiler is installed and only for systems not based on
glibc.
/usr/include/asm -> /usr/src/linux/include/asm-<arch>
/usr/include/linux -> /usr/src/linux/include/linux
6.1.6 /usr/src : Source code

For systems based on glibc, there are no specific guidelines for this directory. For systems based on Linux
libc revisions prior to glibc, the following guidelines and rationale apply:
The only source code that should be placed in a specific location is the Linux kernel source code. It is
located in /usr/src/linux.
If a C or C++ compiler is installed, but the complete Linux kernel source code is not installed, then the
include files from the kernel source code shall be located in these directories:
/usr/src/linux/include/asm-<arch>
/usr/src/linux/include/linux
<arch> is the name of the system architecture.
Note: /usr/src/linux may be a symbolic link to a kernel source code tree.
BEGIN RATIONALE
It is important that the kernel include files be located in /usr/src/linux and not in /usr/include
so there are no problems when system administrators upgrade their kernel version for the first time.
- 31 -
END RATIONALE
6.1.7 /var/spool/cron : cron and at jobs

This directory contains the variable data for the cron and at programs.
- 32 -
7. Appendix
7.1 The FHS mailing list

The FHS mailing list is located at <[email protected]>. To subscribe to the list send mail to
<[email protected]> with body "ADD fhs-discuss".
Thanks to Network Operations at the University of California at San Diego who allowed us to use their
excellent mailing list server.
As noted in the introduction, please do not send mail to the mailing list without first contacting the FHS
editor or a listed contributor.
7.2 Acknowledgments
The developers of the FHS wish to thank the developers, system administrators, and users whose input was
essential to this standard. We wish to thank each of the contributors who helped to write, compile, and
compose this standard.
The FHS Group also wishes to thank those Linux developers who supported the FSSTND, the predecessor
to this standard. If they hadn’t demonstrated that the FSSTND was beneficial, the FHS could never have
evolved.
7.3 Contributors
Brandon S. Allbery <[email protected]>

Keith Bostic <[email protected]>
Drew Eckhardt <[email protected]>
Rik Faith <[email protected]>
Stephen Harris <[email protected]>
Ian Jackson <[email protected]>
John A. Martin <[email protected]>
Ian McCloghrie <[email protected]>
Chris Metcalf <[email protected]>
Ian Murdock <[email protected]>
David C. Niemi <[email protected]>
Daniel Quinlan <[email protected]>
Eric S. Raymond <[email protected]>
Mike Sangrey <[email protected]>
David H. Silber <[email protected]>
Theodore Ts’o <[email protected]>
Stephen Tweedie <[email protected]>
Fred N. van Kempen <[email protected]>
Bernd Warken <[email protected]>
- 33 -
CONTENTS
1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 2
1.1 Status of the Standard ................................................................................................................. 2
1.2 Organization of the Standard ...................................................................................................... 2
1.3 Conventions ................................................................................................................................ 2
1.4 Background of the FHS .............................................................................................................. 2
1.5 Scope ........................................................................................................................................... 3
1.6 General Guidelines ..................................................................................................................... 3
1.7 Intended Audience ...................................................................................................................... 3
1.8 Conformance with this Document .............................................................................................. 4
2. The Filesystem ..................................................................................................................................... 5
3. The Root Directory .............................................................................................................................. 7
3.1 /bin : Essential user command binaries (for use by all users) ..................................................... 8
3.2 /boot : Static files of the boot loader ........................................................................................... 9
3.3 /dev : Device files ........................................................................................................................ 9
3.4 /etc : Host-specific system configuration .................................................................................. 10
3.5 /home : User home directories (optional) ................................................................................. 11
3.6 /lib : Essential shared libraries and kernel modules .................................................................. 11
3.7 /mnt : Mount point for temporarily mounted filesystems ......................................................... 11
3.8 /opt : Add-on application software packages ............................................................................ 12
3.9 /root : Home directory for the root user (optional) ................................................................... 12
3.10 /sbin : System binaries (binaries once kept in /etc) .................................................................. 13
3.11 /tmp : Temporary files ............................................................................................................... 13
4. The /usr Hierarchy ............................................................................................................................. 15
4.1 /usr/X11R6 : X Window System, Version 11 Release 6 ........................................................... 15
4.2 /usr/bin : Most user commands ................................................................................................. 15
4.3 /usr/include : Directory for standard include files. ................................................................... 16
4.4 /usr/lib : Libraries for programming and packages ................................................................... 16
4.5 /usr/local : Local hierarchy ....................................................................................................... 16
4.6 /usr/sbin : Non-essential standard system binaries ................................................................... 17
4.7 /usr/share : Architecture-independent data ............................................................................... 17
4.8 /usr/src : Source code ................................................................................................................ 21
5. The /var Hierarchy ............................................................................................................................. 22
5.1 /var/account : Process accounting logs (if supported) .............................................................. 22
5.2 /var/cache : Application cache data .......................................................................................... 23
5.3 /var/crash : System crash dumps (if supported) ........................................................................ 24
5.4 /var/games : Variable game data ............................................................................................... 24
5.5 /var/lib : Variable state information .......................................................................................... 24
5.6 /var/lock : Lock files ................................................................................................................. 25
5.7 /var/log : Log files and directories ............................................................................................ 26
5.8 /var/mail : User mailbox files .................................................................................................... 26
5.9 /var/opt : Variable data for /opt ................................................................................................. 26
5.10 /var/run : Run-time variable data .............................................................................................. 26
5.11 /var/spool : Application spool data ........................................................................................... 27
5.12 /var/tmp : Temporary files preserved between system reboots ................................................. 28
i
5.13 /var/yp : Network Information Service (NIS) database files .................................................... 28
6. Operating System Specific Annex ..................................................................................................... 29
6.1 Linux ......................................................................................................................................... 29
7. Appendix ............................................................................................................................................ 32
7.1 The FHS mailing list ................................................................................................................. 32
7.2 Acknowledgments .................................................................................................................... 32
7.3 Contributors .............................................................................................................................. 32
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Filesystem Hierarchy Standard — Version 2.1

Filesystem Hierarchy Standard Group

April 12, 2000

Copyright © 1994-2000 Daniel Quinlan

1.1 Status of the Standard

1.2 Organization of the Standard

1.4 Background of the FHS

1.6 General Guidelines

1.7 Intended Audience

• System Integrators and Distributors

1.8 Conformance with this Document

3. The Root Directory

/ — the root directory

Required files for /bin:

These commands have been added to make restoration of a system

3.2 /boot : Static files of the boot loader

3.3 /dev : Device files

3.4 /etc : Host-specific system configuration

/etc — Host-specific system configuration

Required files for /etc:

3.4.1 /etc/X11 : Configuration for the X Window System

3.4.2 /etc/opt : Configuration files for /opt

properly, it may be placed in a location other than /etc/opt/<package>.

3.5 /home : User home directories (optional)

3.6 /lib : Essential shared libraries and kernel modules

/lib — essential shared libraries and kernel modules

3.7 /mnt : Mount point for temporarily mounted filesystems

3.8 /opt : Add-on application software packages

3.9 /root : Home directory for the root user (optional)

certain it will default to / if it can not be located.

3.10 /sbin : System binaries (binaries once kept in /etc)

Required files for /sbin:

3.11 /tmp : Temporary files

4. The /usr Hierarchy

/usr — Secondary Hierarchy

4.1 /usr/X11R6 : X Window System, Version 11 Release 6

4.2 /usr/bin : Most user commands

/usr/bin — Binaries that are not needed in single-user mode

4.3 /usr/include : Directory for standard include files.

/usr/include — Include files

4.4 /usr/lib : Libraries for programming and packages

4.5 /usr/local : Local hierarchy

/usr/local — Local hierarchy

4.6 /usr/sbin : Non-essential standard system binaries

4.7 /usr/share : Architecture-independent data

4.7.1 /usr/share/dict : Word lists

Recommended files for /usr/share/dict:

4.7.2 /usr/share/man : Manual pages

<mandir>/<locale> — A manual page hierarchy

Language Territory Character Set Directory

• man4: Special files

4.7.3 /usr/share/misc : Miscellaneous architecture-independent data

4.8 /usr/src : Source code

5. The /var Hierarchy

5.1 /var/account : Process accounting logs (if supported)

5.2 /var/cache : Application cache data

5.2.1 /var/cache/fonts : Locally-generated fonts

5.2.2 /var/cache/man : Locally-formatted manual pages (optional)