HIER(7) 					       BSD Miscellaneous Information Manual						   HIER(7)

NAME

     hier -- layout of filesystems

DESCRIPTION

     A historical sketch of the filesystem hierarchy.  The modern OS X filesystem is documented in the ``File System Programming Guide'' available
     on Apple Developer.

     /		   root directory of the filesystem

     /bin/	   user utilities fundamental to both single-user and multi-user environments

     /dev/	   block and character device files

		   fd/	file descriptor files; see fd(4)

     /etc/	   system configuration files and scripts

     /mach_kernel  kernel executable (the operating system loaded into memory at boot time).

     /sbin/	   system programs and administration utilities fundamental to both single-user and multi-user environments

     /tmp/	   temporary files

     /usr/	   contains the majority of user utilities and applications

		   bin/      common utilities, programming tools, and applications
		   include/  standard C include files

			     arpa/	 C include files for Internet service protocols
			     hfs/	 C include files for HFS
			     machine/	 machine specific C include files
			     net/	 misc network C include files
			     netinet/	 C include files for Internet standard protocols; see inet(4)
			     nfs/	 C include files for NFS (Network File System)
			     objc/	 C include files for Objective-C
			     protocols/  C include files for Berkeley service protocols
			     sys/	 system C include files (kernel data structures)
			     ufs/	 C include files for UFS

		   lib/      archive libraries
		   libexec/  system daemons & system utilities (executed by other programs)
		   local/    executables, libraries, etc. not included by the basic operating system
		   sbin/     system daemons & system utilities (executed by users)
		   share/    architecture-independent data files

			     calendar/	a variety of pre-fab calendar files; see calendar(1)
			     dict/	word lists; see look(1)

					web2	    words from Webster's 2nd International
					words	    common words

			     man/	manual pages
			     misc/	misc system-wide ascii text files
			     mk/	templates for make; see make(1)
			     skel/	example . (dot) files for new accounts
			     tabset/	tab description files for a variety of terminals; used in the termcap file; see termcap(5)
			     zoneinfo/	timezone configuration information; see tzfile(5)

     /var/	   multi-purpose log, temporary, transient, and spool files

		   at/	      timed command scheduling files; see at(1)
		   backups/   misc. backup files
		   db/	      misc. automatically generated system-specific database files
		   log/       misc. system log files

		   mail/      user mailbox files
		   run/       system information files describing various info about system since it was booted

			      utmpx	  database of current users; see utmpx(5)

		   rwho/      rwho data files; see rwhod(8), rwho(1), and ruptime(1)
		   spool/     misc. printer and mail system spooling directories

			      mqueue/	  undelivered mail queue; see sendmail(8)

		   tmp/       temporary files that are kept between system reboots
		   folders/   per-user temporary files and caches

SEE ALSO

     ls(1), apropos(1), whatis(1), whereis(1), finger(1), which(1), find(1), grep(1), fsck(8)

HISTORY

     A hier manual page appeared in Version 7 AT&T UNIX.

BSD
								   July 23, 2007							       BSD