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the Linux file tree

(Written by Paul Cobbaut, https://github.com/paulcobbaut/, with contributions by: Alex M. Schapelle, https://github.com/zero-pytagoras/, Serge Van Ginderachter, https://github.com/srgvg/)

This chapter takes a look at the most common directories in the Linux file tree. It also shows that on Unix everything is a file.

filesystem hierarchy standard

Many Linux distributions partially follow the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard. The FHS may help make more Unix/Linux file system trees conform better in the future. The FHS is available online at http://www.pathname.com/fhs/ where we read: \"The filesystem hierarchy standard has been designed to be used by Unix distribution developers, package developers, and system implementers. However, it is primarily intended to be a reference and is not a tutorial on how to manage a Unix filesystem or directory hierarchy.\"

man hier

There are some differences in the filesystems between Linux distributions. For help about your machine, enter man hier to find information about the file system hierarchy. This manual will explain the directory structure on your computer.

the root directory /

All Linux systems have a directory structure that starts at the root directory. The root directory is represented by a forward slash, like this: /. Everything that exists on your Linux system can be found below this root directory. Let\'s take a brief look at the contents of the root directory.

[student@linux ~]$ ls /
bin   dev  home  media  mnt  proc  sbin     srv  tftpboot  usr
boot  etc  lib   misc   opt  root  selinux  sys  tmp       var

binary directories

Binaries are files that contain compiled source code (or machine code). Binaries can be executed on the computer. Sometimes binaries are called executables.

/bin

The /bin directory contains binaries for use by all users. According to the FHS the /bin directory should contain /bin/cat and /bin/date (among others).

In the screenshot below you see common Unix/Linux commands like cat, cp, cpio, date, dd, echo, grep, and so on. Many of these will be covered in this book.

student@linux:~$ ls /bin
archdetect       egrep             mt               setupcon
autopartition    false             mt-gnu           sh
bash             fgconsole         mv               sh.distrib
bunzip2          fgrep             nano             sleep
bzcat            fuser             nc               stralign
bzcmp            fusermount        nc.traditional   stty
bzdiff           get_mountoptions  netcat           su
bzegrep          grep              netstat          sync
bzexe            gunzip            ntfs-3g          sysfs
bzfgrep          gzexe             ntfs-3g.probe    tailf
bzgrep           gzip              parted_devices   tar
bzip2            hostname          parted_server    tempfile
bzip2recover     hw-detect         partman          touch
bzless           ip                partman-commit   true
bzmore           kbd_mode          perform_recipe   ulockmgr
cat              kill              pidof            umount
...

other /bin directories

You can find a /bin subdirectory in many other directories. A user named serena could put her own programs in /home/serena/bin.

Some applications, often when installed directly from source will put themselves in /opt. A samba server installation can use /opt/samba/bin to store its binaries.

/sbin

/sbin contains binaries to configure the operating system. Many of the system binaries require root privilege to perform certain tasks.

Below a screenshot containing system binaries to change the ip address, partition a disk and create an ext4 file system.

student@linux:~$ ls -l /sbin/ifconfig /sbin/fdisk /sbin/mkfs.ext4
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 97172 2011-02-02 09:56 /sbin/fdisk
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 65708 2010-07-02 09:27 /sbin/ifconfig
-rwxr-xr-x 5 root root 55140 2010-08-18 18:01 /sbin/mkfs.ext4

/lib

Binaries found in /bin and /sbin often use shared libraries located in /lib. Below is a screenshot of the partial contents of /lib.

student@linux:~$ ls /lib/libc*
/lib/libc-2.5.so     /lib/libcfont.so.0.0.0  /lib/libcom_err.so.2.1    
/lib/libcap.so.1     /lib/libcidn-2.5.so     /lib/libconsole.so.0      
/lib/libcap.so.1.10  /lib/libcidn.so.1       /lib/libconsole.so.0.0.0  
/lib/libcfont.so.0   /lib/libcom_err.so.2    /lib/libcrypt-2.5.so

/lib/modules

Typically, the Linux kernel loads kernel modules from /lib/modules/$kernel-version/. This directory is discussed in detail in the Linux kernel chapter.

/lib32 and /lib64

We currently are in a transition between 32-bit and 64-bit systems. Therefore, you may encounter directories named /lib32 and /lib64 which clarify the register size used during compilation time of the libraries. A 64-bit computer may have some 32-bit binaries and libraries for compatibility with legacy applications. This screenshot uses the file utility to demonstrate the difference.

student@linux:~$ file /lib32/libc-2.5.so 
/lib32/libc-2.5.so: ELF 32-bit LSB shared object, Intel 80386, \
version 1 (SYSV), for GNU/Linux 2.6.0, stripped
student@linux:~$ file /lib64/libcap.so.1.10 
/lib64/libcap.so.1.10: ELF 64-bit LSB shared object, AMD x86-64, \
version 1 (SYSV), stripped

The ELF (Executable and Linkable Format) is used in almost every Unix-like operating system since System V.

/opt

The purpose of /opt is to store optional software. In many cases this is software from outside the distribution repository. You may find an empty /opt directory on many systems.

A large package can install all its files in /bin, /lib, /etc subdirectories within /opt/$packagename/. If for example the package is called wp, then it installs in /opt/wp, putting binaries in /opt/wp/bin and manpages in /opt/wp/man.

configuration directories

/boot

The /boot directory contains all files needed to boot the computer. These files don\'t change very often. On Linux systems you typically find the /boot/grub directory here. /boot/grub contains /boot/grub/grub.cfg (older systems may still have /boot/grub/grub.conf) which defines the boot menu that is displayed before the kernel starts.

/etc

All of the machine-specific configuration files should be located in /etc. Historically /etc stood for etcetera, today people often use the Editable Text Configuration backronym.

Many times the name of a configuration files is the same as the application, daemon, or protocol with .conf added as the extension.

student@linux:~$ ls /etc/*.conf
/etc/adduser.conf        /etc/ld.so.conf       /etc/scrollkeeper.conf
/etc/brltty.conf         /etc/lftp.conf        /etc/sysctl.conf
/etc/ccertificates.conf  /etc/libao.conf       /etc/syslog.conf
/etc/cvs-cron.conf       /etc/logrotate.conf   /etc/ucf.conf
/etc/ddclient.conf       /etc/ltrace.conf      /etc/uniconf.conf
/etc/debconf.conf        /etc/mke2fs.conf      /etc/updatedb.conf
/etc/deluser.conf        /etc/netscsid.conf    /etc/usplash.conf
/etc/fdmount.conf        /etc/nsswitch.conf    /etc/uswsusp.conf
/etc/hdparm.conf         /etc/pam.conf         /etc/vnc.conf
/etc/host.conf           /etc/pnm2ppa.conf     /etc/wodim.conf
/etc/inetd.conf          /etc/povray.conf      /etc/wvdial.conf
/etc/kernel-img.conf     /etc/resolv.conf
student@linux:~$

There is much more to be found in /etc.

/etc/init.d/

A lot of Unix/Linux distributions have an /etc/init.d directory that contains scripts to start and stop daemons. This directory could disappear as Linux migrates to systems that replace the old init way of starting all daemons.

/etc/X11/

The graphical display (aka X Window System or just X) is driven by software from the X.org foundation. The configuration file for your graphical display is /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

/etc/skel/

The skeleton directory /etc/skel is copied to the home directory of a newly created user. It usually contains hidden files like a .bashrc script.

/etc/sysconfig/

This directory, which is not mentioned in the FHS, contains a lot of Red Hat Enterprise Linux configuration files. We will discuss some of them in greater detail. The screenshot below is the /etc/sysconfig directory from RHELv8u4 with everything installed.

student@linux:~$ ls /etc/sysconfig/
apmd         firstboot     irda              network      saslauthd
apm-scripts  grub          irqbalance        networking   selinux
authconfig   hidd          keyboard          ntpd         spamassassin
autofs       httpd         kudzu             openib.conf  squid
bluetooth    hwconf        lm_sensors        pand         syslog
clock        i18n          mouse             pcmcia       sys-config-sec
console      init          mouse.B           pgsql        sys-config-users
crond        installinfo   named             prelink      sys-logviewer
desktop      ipmi          netdump           rawdevices   tux
diskdump     iptables      netdump_id_dsa    rhn          vncservers
dund         iptables-cfg  netdump_id_dsa.p  samba        xinetd
student@linux:~$

The file /etc/sysconfig/firstboot tells the Red Hat Setup Agent not to run at boot time. If you want to run the Red Hat Setup Agent at the next reboot, then simply remove this file, and run chkconfig --level 5 firstboot on. The Red Hat Setup Agent allows you to install the latest updates, create a user account, join the Red Hat Network and more. It will then create the /etc/sysconfig/firstboot file again.

student@linux:~$ cat /etc/sysconfig/firstboot 
RUN_FIRSTBOOT=NO

The /etc/sysconfig/harddisks file contains some parameters to tune the hard disks. The file explains itself.

You can see hardware detected by kudzu in /etc/sysconfig/hwconf. Kudzu is software from Red Hat for automatic discovery and configuration of hardware.

The keyboard type and keymap table are set in the /etc/sysconfig/keyboard file. For more console keyboard information, check the manual pages of keymaps(5), dumpkeys(1), loadkeys(1) and the directory /lib/kbd/keymaps/.

root@linux:/etc/sysconfig# cat keyboard 
KEYBOARDTYPE="pc"
KEYTABLE="us"

We will discuss networking files in this directory in the networking chapter.

data directories

/home

Users can store personal or project data under /home. It is common (but not mandatory by the fhs) practice to name the users home directory after the user name in the format /home/$USERNAME. For example:

student@linux:~$ ls /home 
geert  annik  sandra  paul  tom

Besides giving every user (or every project or group) a location to store personal files, the home directory of a user also serves as a location to store the user profile. A typical Unix user profile contains many hidden files (files whose file name starts with a dot). The hidden files of the Unix user profiles contain settings specific for that user.

student@linux:~$ ls -d /home/paul/.*
/home/paul/.              /home/paul/.bash_profile  /home/paul/.ssh
/home/paul/..             /home/paul/.bashrc        /home/paul/.viminfo
/home/paul/.bash_history  /home/paul/.lesshst

/root

On many systems /root is the default location for personal data and profile of the root user. If it does not exist by default, then some administrators create it.

/srv

You may use /srv for data that is served by your system. The FHS allows locating cvs, rsync, ftp and www data in this location. The FHS also approves administrative naming in /srv, like /srv/project55/ftp and /srv/sales/www.

On Sun Solaris (or Oracle Solaris) /export is used for this purpose.

/media

The /media directory serves as a mount point for removable media devices such as CD-ROM\'s, digital cameras, and various usb-attached devices. Since /media is rather new in the Unix world, you could very well encounter systems running without this directory. Solaris 9 does not have it, Solaris 10 does. Most Linux distributions today mount all removable media in /media.

student@linux:~$ ls /media/
cdrom  cdrom0  usbdisk

/mnt

The /mnt directory should be empty and should only be used for temporary mount points (according to the FHS).

Unix and Linux administrators used to create many directories here, like /mnt/something/. You likely will encounter many systems with more than one directory created and/or mounted inside /mnt to be used for various local and remote filesystems.

/tmp

Applications and users should use /tmp to store temporary data when needed. Data stored in /tmp may use either disk space or RAM. Both of which are managed by the operating system. Never use /tmp to store data that is important or which you wish to archive.

in memory directories

/dev

Device files in /dev appear to be ordinary files, but are not actually located on the hard disk. The /dev directory is populated with files as the kernel is recognising hardware.

common physical devices

Common hardware such as hard disk devices are represented by device files in /dev. Below a screenshot of SATA device files on a laptop and then IDE attached drives on a desktop. (The detailed meaning of these devices will be discussed later.)

#
# SATA or SCSI or USB
#
student@linux:~$ ls /dev/sd*
/dev/sda  /dev/sda1  /dev/sda2  /dev/sda3  /dev/sdb  /dev/sdb1  /dev/sdb2

#
# IDE or ATAPI
#
student@linux:~$ ls /dev/hd*
/dev/hda  /dev/hda1  /dev/hda2  /dev/hdb  /dev/hdb1  /dev/hdb2  /dev/hdc

Besides representing physical hardware, some device files are special. These special devices can be very useful.

/dev/tty and /dev/pts

For example, /dev/tty1 represents a terminal or console attached to the system. (Don\'t break your head on the exact terminology of \'terminal\' or \'console\', what we mean here is a command line interface.) When typing commands in a terminal that is part of a graphical interface like Gnome or KDE, then your terminal will be represented as /dev/pts/1 (1 can be another number).

/dev/null

On Linux you will find other special devices such as /dev/null which can be considered a black hole; it has unlimited storage, but nothing can be retrieved from it. Technically speaking, anything written to /dev/null will be discarded. /dev/null can be useful to discard unwanted output from commands. /dev/null is not a good location to store your backups ;-).

/proc conversation with the kernel

/proc is another special directory, appearing to be ordinary files, but not taking up disk space. It is actually a view of the kernel, or better, what the kernel manages, and is a means to interact with it directly. /proc is a proc filesystem.

student@linux:~$ mount -t proc
none on /proc type proc (rw)

When listing the /proc directory you will see many numbers (on any Unix) and some interesting files (on Linux)

mul@linux:~$ ls /proc
1      2339   4724  5418  6587  7201       cmdline      mounts
10175  2523   4729  5421  6596  7204       cpuinfo      mtrr
10211  2783   4741  5658  6599  7206       crypto       net
10239  2975   4873  5661  6638  7214       devices      pagetypeinfo
141    29775  4874  5665  6652  7216       diskstats    partitions
15045  29792  4878  5927  6719  7218       dma          sched_debug
1519   2997   4879  6     6736  7223       driver       scsi
1548   3      4881  6032  6737  7224       execdomains  self
1551   30228  4882  6033  6755  7227       fb           slabinfo
1554   3069   5     6145  6762  7260       filesystems  stat
1557   31422  5073  6298  6774  7267       fs           swaps
1606   3149   5147  6414  6816  7275       ide          sys
180    31507  5203  6418  6991  7282       interrupts   sysrq-trigger
181    3189   5206  6419  6993  7298       iomem        sysvipc
182    3193   5228  6420  6996  7319       ioports      timer_list
18898  3246   5272  6421  7157  7330       irq          timer_stats
19799  3248   5291  6422  7163  7345       kallsyms     tty
19803  3253   5294  6423  7164  7513       kcore        uptime
19804  3372   5356  6424  7171  7525       key-users    version
1987   4      5370  6425  7175  7529       kmsg         version_signature
1989   42     5379  6426  7188  9964       loadavg      vmcore
2      45     5380  6430  7189  acpi       locks        vmnet
20845  4542   5412  6450  7191  asound     meminfo      vmstat
221    46     5414  6551  7192  buddyinfo  misc         zoneinfo
2338   4704   5416  6568  7199  bus        modules

Let\'s investigate the file properties inside /proc. Looking at the date and time will display the current date and time showing the files are constantly updated (a view on the kernel).

student@linux:~$ date
Mon Jan 29 18:06:32 EST 2007
student@linux:~$ ls -al /proc/cpuinfo 
-r--r--r--  1 root root 0 Jan 29 18:06 /proc/cpuinfo
student@linux:~$ 
student@linux:~$  ...time passes...
student@linux:~$ 
student@linux:~$ date
Mon Jan 29 18:10:00 EST 2007
student@linux:~$ ls -al /proc/cpuinfo 
-r--r--r--  1 root root 0 Jan 29 18:10 /proc/cpuinfo

Most files in /proc are 0 bytes, yet they contain data--sometimes a lot of data. You can see this by executing cat on files like /proc/cpuinfo, which contains information about the CPU.

student@linux:~$ file /proc/cpuinfo 
/proc/cpuinfo: empty
student@linux:~$ cat /proc/cpuinfo 
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : AuthenticAMD
cpu family      : 15
model           : 43
model name      : AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4600+
stepping        : 1
cpu MHz         : 2398.628
cache size      : 512 KB
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 1
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic mtrr pge...
bogomips        : 4803.54

Just for fun, here is /proc/cpuinfo on a Sun Sunblade 1000...

student@linux:~$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
cpu : TI UltraSparc III (Cheetah)
fpu : UltraSparc III integrated FPU
promlib : Version 3 Revision 2
prom : 4.2.2
type : sun4u
ncpus probed : 2
ncpus active : 2
Cpu0Bogo : 498.68
Cpu0ClkTck : 000000002cb41780
Cpu1Bogo : 498.68
Cpu1ClkTck : 000000002cb41780
MMU Type : Cheetah
State:
CPU0: online
CPU1: online

Most of the files in /proc are read only, some require root privileges, some files are writable, and many files in /proc/sys are writable. Let\'s discuss some of the files in /proc.

/proc/interrupts

On the x86 architecture, /proc/interrupts displays the interrupts.

student@linux:~$ cat /proc/interrupts 
           CPU0       
  0:   13876877    IO-APIC-edge  timer
  1:         15    IO-APIC-edge  i8042
  8:          1    IO-APIC-edge  rtc
  9:          0   IO-APIC-level  acpi
 12:         67    IO-APIC-edge  i8042
 14:        128    IO-APIC-edge  ide0
 15:     124320    IO-APIC-edge  ide1
169:     111993   IO-APIC-level  ioc0
177:       2428   IO-APIC-level  eth0
NMI:          0 
LOC:   13878037 
ERR:          0
MIS:          0

On a machine with two CPU\'s, the file looks like this.

student@linux:~$ cat /proc/interrupts 
          CPU0      CPU1       
  0:    860013        0  IO-APIC-edge     timer
  1:      4533        0  IO-APIC-edge     i8042
  7:         0        0  IO-APIC-edge     parport0
  8:   6588227        0  IO-APIC-edge     rtc
 10:      2314        0  IO-APIC-fasteoi  acpi
 12:       133        0  IO-APIC-edge     i8042
 14:         0        0  IO-APIC-edge     libata
 15:     72269        0  IO-APIC-edge     libata
 18:         1        0  IO-APIC-fasteoi  yenta
 19:    115036        0  IO-APIC-fasteoi  eth0
 20:    126871        0  IO-APIC-fasteoi  libata, ohci1394
 21:     30204        0  IO-APIC-fasteoi  ehci_hcd:usb1, uhci_hcd:usb2
 22:      1334        0  IO-APIC-fasteoi  saa7133[0], saa7133[0]
 24:    234739        0  IO-APIC-fasteoi  nvidia
NMI:        72       42 
LOC:    860000   859994 
ERR:         0

/proc/kcore

The physical memory is represented in /proc/kcore. Do not try to cat this file, instead use a debugger. The size of /proc/kcore is the same as your physical memory, plus four bytes.

student@linux:~$ ls -lh /proc/kcore 
-r-------- 1 root root 2.0G 2007-01-30 08:57 /proc/kcore
student@linux:~$

/sys Linux 2.6 hot plugging

The /sys directory was created for the Linux 2.6 kernel. Since 2.6, Linux uses sysfs to support usb and IEEE 1394 (FireWire) hot plug devices. See the manual pages of udev(8) (the successor of devfs) and hotplug(8) for more info (or visit http://linux-hotplug.sourceforge.net/ ).

Basically the /sys directory contains kernel information about hardware.

/usr Unix System Resources

Although /usr is pronounced like user, remember that it stands for Unix System Resources. The /usr hierarchy should contain shareable, read only data. Some people choose to mount /usr as read only. This can be done from its own partition or from a read only NFS share (NFS is discussed later).

/usr/bin

The /usr/bin directory contains a lot of commands.

student@linux:~$ ls /usr/bin | wc -l
1395

(On Solaris the /bin directory is a symbolic link to /usr/bin.)

/usr/include

The /usr/include directory contains general use include files for C.

student@linux:~$ ls /usr/include/
aalib.h        expat_config.h      math.h           search.h
af_vfs.h       expat_external.h    mcheck.h         semaphore.h
aio.h          expat.h             memory.h         setjmp.h
AL             fcntl.h             menu.h           sgtty.h
aliases.h      features.h          mntent.h         shadow.h
...

/usr/lib

The /usr/lib directory contains libraries that are not directly executed by users or scripts.

student@linux:~$ ls /usr/lib | head -7
4Suite
ao
apt
arj
aspell
avahi
bonobo

/usr/local

The /usr/local directory can be used by an administrator to install software locally.

student@linux:~$ ls /usr/local/
bin  etc  games  include  lib  man  sbin  share  src
student@linux:~$ du -sh /usr/local/
128K    /usr/local/

/usr/share

The /usr/share directory contains architecture independent data. As you can see, this is a fairly large directory.

student@linux:~$ ls /usr/share/ | wc -l
263
student@linux:~$ du -sh /usr/share/
1.3G    /usr/share/

This directory typically contains /usr/share/man for manual pages.

student@linux:~$ ls /usr/share/man
cs  fr        hu        it.UTF-8  man2  man6  pl.ISO8859-2  sv
de  fr.ISO8859-1  id        ja    man3  man7  pl.UTF-8      tr
es  fr.UTF-8      it        ko    man4  man8  pt_BR     zh_CN
fi  gl        it.ISO8859-1  man1      man5  pl    ru        zh_TW

And it contains /usr/share/games for all static game data (so no high-scores or play logs).

student@linux:~$ ls /usr/share/games/
openttd  wesnoth

/usr/src

The /usr/src directory is the recommended location for kernel source files.

student@linux:~$ ls -l /usr/src/
total 12
drwxr-xr-x  4 root root 4096 2011-02-01 14:43 linux-headers-2.6.26-2-686
drwxr-xr-x 18 root root 4096 2011-02-01 14:43 linux-headers-2.6.26-2-common
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 2009-10-28 16:01 linux-kbuild-2.6.26

/var variable data

Files that are unpredictable in size, such as log, cache and spool files, should be located in /var.

/var/log

The /var/log directory serves as a central point to contain all log files.

[student@linux ~]$ ls /var/log
acpid           cron.2    maillog.2   quagga           secure.4
amanda          cron.3    maillog.3   radius           spooler
anaconda.log    cron.4    maillog.4   rpmpkgs          spooler.1
anaconda.syslog cups      mailman     rpmpkgs.1        spooler.2
anaconda.xlog   dmesg     messages    rpmpkgs.2        spooler.3
audit           exim      messages.1  rpmpkgs.3        spooler.4
boot.log        gdm       messages.2  rpmpkgs.4        squid
boot.log.1      httpd     messages.3  sa               uucp
boot.log.2      iiim      messages.4  samba            vbox
boot.log.3      iptraf    mysqld.log  scrollkeeper.log vmware-tools-guestd
boot.log.4      lastlog   news        secure           wtmp
canna           mail      pgsql       secure.1         wtmp.1
cron            maillog   ppp         secure.2         Xorg.0.log
cron.1          maillog.1 prelink.log secure.3         Xorg.0.log.old

/var/log/messages

A typical first file to check when troubleshooting on Red Hat (and derivatives) is the /var/log/messages file. By default this file will contain information on what just happened to the system. The file is called /var/log/syslog on Debian and Ubuntu.

[root@linux ~]# tail /var/log/messages
Jul 30 05:13:56 anacron: anacron startup succeeded
Jul 30 05:13:56 atd: atd startup succeeded
Jul 30 05:13:57 messagebus: messagebus startup succeeded
Jul 30 05:13:57 cups-config-daemon: cups-config-daemon startup succeeded
Jul 30 05:13:58 haldaemon: haldaemon startup succeeded
Jul 30 05:14:00 fstab-sync[3560]: removed all generated mount points
Jul 30 05:14:01 fstab-sync[3628]: added mount point /media/cdrom for...
Jul 30 05:14:01 fstab-sync[3646]: added mount point /media/floppy for...
Jul 30 05:16:46 sshd(pam_unix)[3662]: session opened for user paul by... 
Jul 30 06:06:37 su(pam_unix)[3904]: session opened for user root by paul

/var/cache

The /var/cache directory can contain cache data for several applications.

student@linux:~$ ls /var/cache/
apt      dictionaries-common    gdm       man        software-center
binfmts  flashplugin-installer  hald      pm-utils
cups     fontconfig             jockey    pppconfig
debconf  fonts                  ldconfig  samba

/var/spool

The /var/spool directory typically contains spool directories for mail and cron, but also serves as a parent directory for other spool files (for example print spool files).

/var/lib

The /var/lib directory contains application state information.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux for example keeps files pertaining to rpm in /var/lib/rpm/.

/var/...

/var also contains Process ID files in /var/run (soon to be replaced with /run) and temporary files that survive a reboot in /var/tmp and information about file locks in /var/lock. There will be more examples of /var usage further in this book.

practice: file system tree

1. Does the file /bin/cat exist ? What about /bin/dd and /bin/echo. What is the type of these files ?

2. What is the size of the Linux kernel file(s) (vmlinu*) in /boot ?

3. Create a directory \~/test. Then issue the following commands:

cd ~/test

dd if=/dev/zero of=zeroes.txt count=1 bs=100

od zeroes.txt

dd will copy one times (count=1) a block of size 100 bytes (bs=100) from the file /dev/zero to \~/test/zeroes.txt. Can you describe the functionality of /dev/zero ?

4. Now issue the following command:

dd if=/dev/random of=random.txt count=1 bs=100 ; od random.txt

dd will copy one times (count=1) a block of size 100 bytes (bs=100) from the file /dev/random to \~/test/random.txt. Can you describe the functionality of /dev/random ?

5. Issue the following two commands, and look at the first character of each output line.

ls -l /dev/sd* /dev/hd*

ls -l /dev/tty* /dev/input/mou*

The first ls will show block(b) devices, the second ls shows character(c) devices. Can you tell the difference between block and character devices ?

6. Use cat to display /etc/hosts and /etc/resolv.conf. What is your idea about the purpose of these files ?

7. Are there any files in /etc/skel/ ? Check also for hidden files.

8. Display /proc/cpuinfo. On what architecture is your Linux running ?

9. Display /proc/interrupts. What is the size of this file ? Where is this file stored ?

10. Can you enter the /root directory ? Are there (hidden) files ?

11. Are ifconfig, fdisk, parted, shutdown and grub-install present in /sbin ? Why are these binaries in /sbin and not in /bin ?

12. Is /var/log a file or a directory ? What about /var/spool ?

13. Open two command prompts (Ctrl-Shift-T in gnome-terminal) or terminals (Ctrl-Alt-F1, Ctrl-Alt-F2, ...) and issue the who am i in both. Then try to echo a word from one terminal to the other.

14. Read the man page of random and explain the difference between /dev/random and /dev/urandom.

solution: file system tree

1. Does the file /bin/cat exist ? What about /bin/dd and /bin/echo. What is the type of these files ?

ls /bin/cat ; file /bin/cat

ls /bin/dd ; file /bin/dd

ls /bin/echo ; file /bin/echo

2. What is the size of the Linux kernel file(s) (vmlinu*) in /boot ?

ls -lh /boot/vm*

3. Create a directory \~/test. Then issue the following commands:

cd ~/test

dd if=/dev/zero of=zeroes.txt count=1 bs=100

od zeroes.txt

dd will copy one times (count=1) a block of size 100 bytes (bs=100) from the file /dev/zero to \~/test/zeroes.txt. Can you describe the functionality of /dev/zero ?

/dev/zero is a Linux special device. It can be considered a source of zeroes. You cannot send something to /dev/zero, but you can read zeroes from it.

4. Now issue the following command:

dd if=/dev/random of=random.txt count=1 bs=100 ; od random.txt

dd will copy one times (count=1) a block of size 100 bytes (bs=100) from the file /dev/random to \~/test/random.txt. Can you describe the functionality of /dev/random ?

/dev/random acts as a random number generator on your Linux machine.

5. Issue the following two commands, and look at the first character of each output line.

ls -l /dev/sd* /dev/hd*

ls -l /dev/tty* /dev/input/mou*

The first ls will show block(b) devices, the second ls shows character(c) devices. Can you tell the difference between block and character devices ?

Block devices are always written to (or read from) in blocks. For hard disks, blocks of 512 bytes are common. Character devices act as a stream of characters (or bytes). Mouse and keyboard are typical character devices.

6. Use cat to display /etc/hosts and /etc/resolv.conf. What is your idea about the purpose of these files ?

/etc/hosts/etc/hosts contains hostnames with their ip address

/etc/resolv.conf/etc/resolv.conf should contain the ip address of a DNS name server.

7. Are there any files in /etc/skel/ ? Check also for hidden files.

Issue "ls -al /etc/skel/". Yes, there should be hidden files there.

8. Display /proc/cpuinfo. On what architecture is your Linux running ?

The file should contain at least one line with Intel or other cpu.

9. Display /proc/interrupts. What is the size of this file ? Where is this file stored ?

The size is zero, yet the file contains data. It is not stored anywhere because /proc is a virtual file system that allows you to talk with the kernel. (If you answered \"stored in RAM-memory, that is also correct...).

10. Can you enter the /root directory ? Are there (hidden) files ?

Try "cd /root". The /root directory is not accessible for normal users on most modern Linux systems.

11. Are ifconfig, fdisk, parted, shutdown and grub-install present in /sbin ? Why are these binaries in /sbin and not in /bin ?

Because those files are only meant for system administrators.

12. Is /var/log a file or a directory ? What about /var/spool ?

Both are directories.

13. Open two command prompts (Ctrl-Shift-T in gnome-terminal) or terminals (Ctrl-Alt-F1, Ctrl-Alt-F2, ...) and issue the who am i in both. Then try to echo a word from one terminal to the other.

tty-terminal: echo Hello > /dev/tty1

pts-terminal: echo Hello > /dev/pts/1

14. Read the man page of random and explain the difference between /dev/random and /dev/urandom.

man 4 random