Difference between revisions of "Linux directory structure"

Latest revision as of 20:12, 19 April 2022

The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) defines the main directories and their contents in Linux operating systems. More simply, it is the Linux directory structure.

NOTE: Run man hier to get the most up to date hierarchy.

Directory structure

All files and directories appear under the root directory "/", even if they are stored on different physical devices. Note, however, that some of these directories may or may not be present on a given Linux system as they depend on whether certain subsystems, such as the X Window System, are installed.

Partitions

/boot
/
/home
swap

Also,

/tmp nosuid,noexec,nodev (no SUID programes, No executables, No Device Files).
/var noexec,nosuid # maybe
/usr/local # maybe

If you do not want run-away logging to fill up our /var partition, you can archive (tar) old logs (e.g., older than one day):

find /var/log/ -name "*.log" -mtime +1 -exec bzip2 -z '{}' \;

and then delete old tars (e.g., older than 30 days):

find /var/log -name "*.bz2" -mtime +30 -exec rm '{}' \;

• "Mountable" directories are: '/home', '/mnt', '/tmp', '/usr', and '/var'.
• Essential for booting are (i.e., they should all be on one partition): '/bin', '/boot', '/dev', '/etc', '/lib', '/proc', and '/sbin'.

man pages

The following directories are usually (actually, should be) in /usr/share/<mandir>/<locale>

man1 

User programs (optional)

man2 

System calls (optional)

man3 

Library calls (optional)

man4 

Special files (optional)

man5 

File formats (optional)

man6 

Games (optional)

man7 

Miscellaneous (optional)

man8 

System administration (optional)

Create the FHS from scratch

Note: The following was taken from the Linux From Scratch docs.

mkdir -pv /{bin,boot,etc/{opt,sysconfig},home,lib/firmware,mnt,opt}
mkdir -pv /{media/{floppy,cdrom},sbin,srv,var}
install -dv -m 0750 /root
install -dv -m 1777 /tmp /var/tmp
mkdir -pv /usr/{,local/}{bin,include,lib,sbin,src}
mkdir -pv /usr/{,local/}share/{color,dict,doc,info,locale,man}
mkdir -v  /usr/{,local/}share/{misc,terminfo,zoneinfo}
mkdir -v  /usr/libexec
mkdir -pv /usr/{,local/}share/man/man{1..8}

case $(uname -m) in
 x86_64) ln -sv lib /lib64
         ln -sv lib /usr/lib64
         ln -sv lib /usr/local/lib64 ;;
esac

mkdir -v /var/{log,mail,spool}
ln -sv /run /var/run
ln -sv /run/lock /var/lock
mkdir -pv /var/{opt,cache,lib/{color,misc,locate},local}

External links

• Home of the FHS standard
• Linux Filesystem Hierarchy
• Fortune Cookies through the /proc Filesystem
• wikipedia:Filesystem Hierarchy Standard