HP-UX System Administrator's Guide: Overview HP-UX 11i v3 (B3921-90011, September 2010)

location is left at its default), the home (login) directory for Thomas
will be /home/thomas.
/opt The /opt directory contains application software and other system
components of the HP-UX 11i operating system that are not
considered to be part of the minimum-level installation needed for
a viable system.
/sbin
Contains statically linked versions of critical programs needed at
boot time or when important shared libraries have become corrupted.
/sbin is available when the system is not in multiuser mode and
before the /usr file system has been mounted.
/stand The /stand directory is part of the root file system (the very first
file system that is mounted during the system startup sequence).
/stand is a special directory that is used by the boot loader to read
the kernel file from disk and start it running.
/tmp The /tmp directory is a temporary scratch directory, particularly
used before the file system mounted at /var is available during
system startup.
Some installations delete the contents of /tmp at every boot; others
choose to manually maintain /tmp. Either way, do not store files in
/tmp for long periods of time that would be detrimental to lose. See
also /var/tmp.
/usr
Contains many HP-UX resources that are typically not needed to
boot the system.
The files in the / and /usr directories are intended to be for read-only
use so that these directories can, if necessary, be mounted from a
network resource in read-only mode. When HP-UX components and
applications need to update files, such as log files, those files should
be placed in a writable file system such as /var.
/usr/bin
Contains dynamically linked non-essential commands and programs
used by most users once the system is in multiuser mode. The
commands and programs in /usr/bin are not needed in order to boot
the system. These commands are available only when the file system
that contains them is mounted.
/usr/lib Contains shared libraries used by the binaries in /usr/bin.
/usr/sbin
Contains dynamically linked non-essential commands used to
administer the system once it is in multiuser mode. These commands
are available only when the file system that contains them is mounted.
/var
“var” stands for variable. This directory (usually associated with a
mountable file system) contains variable data; that is, files that need
to change as the system is running (for example, log files that need
to be written to).
/var/opt/product
Some optional products, when added to a server, create subdirectories
under the directory /var/opt to store product specific information.
/var/tmp The /var/tmp directory is a temporary scratch directory, preferred
over the /tmp directory after the system has been booted (primarily
because /var is the intended location for transient data and
temporary data is by definition transient).
As with the /tmp directory, /var/tmp should only be used for
temporary files (files that are not intended to be stored for long
periods of time and files that are not essential). Unlike /tmp, /var/
42 Major Components of HP-UX