Installation guide

Chapter 1. File System Structure 19

1.2.1.6. The /proc Directory

The /proc directory contains special "ﬁles" that either extract information from or send information

to the kernel.

Due to the great variety of data available within /proc and the many ways this directory can be

used to communicate with the kernel, an entire chapter has been devoted to the subject. For more

information, please see Chapter 2.

1.2.1.7. The /sbin Directory

The /sbin directory is for executables used only by the root user. The executables in /sbin are only

used to boot and mount /usr and perform system recovery operations. The FHS says:

"/sbin typically contains ﬁles 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 in /usr/sbin.

Local-only system administration binaries should be placed into /usr/local/sbin."

At a minimum, the following programs should be in /sbin:

arp, clock,

getty, halt,

init, fdisk,

fsck.*, grub,

ifconfig, lilo,

mkfs.*, mkswap,

reboot, route,

shutdown, swapoff,

swapon, update

1.2.1.8. The /usr Directory

The /usr directory is for ﬁles that can be shared across a whole site. The /usr directory usually has

its own partition, and it should be mountable read-only. At minimum, the following directories should

be subdirectories of /usr:

/usr

|- bin

|- dict

|- doc

|- etc

|- games

|- include

|- kerberos

|- lib

|- libexec

|- local

|- sbin

|- share

|- src

|- tmp -> ../var/tmp

|- X11R6

The bin directory contains executables, dict contains non-FHS compliant documentation pages,

etc contains system-wide conﬁguration ﬁles, games is for games, include contains C header ﬁles,

kerberos contains binaries and much more for Kerberos, and lib contains object ﬁles and libraries