System and Network

Administration Linux based

ITEC 3116
File System Hierarchy
Lecture 9-Week 5,
May 2020.
Recap of the previous Lecture
 Ubuntu Terminal/Bash
 Basic Commands
 Linux File System
 I Nodes
 File Hierarchy Standard
 Directories & Subdirectories
Agenda for Today’s Class
File System Structure
 File System Structure and
Hierarchy
 Structure and commands of
Subdirectories
 The “/”

boot bin dev etc lib proc root sbin tmp usr var

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/dev

 Usually is the location of device files

 A device and a file both can be read from and
written to. So config a device is same with edit
a file. EXP: sending data to /dev/ttyS0 that
means you are sending data to a
communication device, such as a modem.
 'block devices' are devices that store or hold
data
 'character devices' can be thought of as
devices that transmit or transfer data

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 /dev … detail

 /dev/ttyS0 → Device connected to Com1 (Modem, mouse,..)

 /dev/psaux → PS/2 mouse connection
 /dev/lp0 → First parallel port
 /dev/dsp → Sound card (digital signal processor)
 /dev/usb → USB device nodes.
 /dev/sda → First SCSI device
 /dev/scd → First SCSI CD-ROM device
 /dev/cdrom → CD-ROM drive
 /dev/fd0 → floppy drive
 /dev/had → The partition on primary hdd

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/etc

 Contains all system related

configuration files
 Local file used to control the
operation of a program
 Those files must be static and cannot
be an executable binary

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/etc … detail

 /etc/X11/ : contains all the configuration files for the X

Window System
 /etc/ftpchroot : List of ftp users that need to be chrooted
 /etc/ftpaccess : Determines who might get ftp-access to
your machine.
 /etc/gateways : Lists gateways for 'routed'
 /etc/group, /etc/passwd. lists the configured user groups
and who belongs to them.
 /etc/hostname : Contains the hostname of your machine

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/home

 The user home directories

 Accessible only to its owner and the
system administrator
 Contains the user’s personal
configuration files

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/initrd

 /initrd (initial ramdisk) Provides the

capability to load a RAM disk by the boot
loader.
 This RAM disk can be mounted as the root file
system and programs can be run from it.
Afterwards, a new root file system can be
mounted from a different device. The previous
root (from initrd) is then moved to a directory
and can be subsequently unmounted.
 Initrd is mainly designed to allow system
startup to occur in two phases, where the
kernel comes up with a minimum set of
compiled-in drivers, and where additional
modules are loaded from initrd.
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/lib

 Contains kernel modules and those

shared library images (the C
programming code library) needed to
boot the system and run the
commands in the root filesystem, ie.
by binaries in /bin and /sbin
 Windows equivalent to a shared
library would be a DLL (dynamically
linked library) file
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/lost+found

 Contains the files which were

recovered after an unexpected event,
such as a proper shutdown.
 Try to move each file back to its
original location

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/mnt

 This is a generic mount point under

mounted (mount is to make a
filesystem available to the system)
the filesystems or devices.
 When a filesystem no longer needs to
be mounted, it can be unmounted
with umount
• mount /dev/hda2 /home
• umount /dev/hda2

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 /sbin
 Like /bin bet less important
 /sbin should contain only binaries essential for
booting, restoring, recovering, and/or repairing the
system in addition to the binaries in /bin.
 /sbin is a standard subdirectory of the root directory
in Linux and other Unix-like operating systems that
contains executable (i.e., ready to run) programs.
They are mostly administrative tools, that should be
made available only to the root (i.e., administrative)
user.

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 /sbin … detail
 shutdown → Command to bring the system down.
 Fastboot → Reboot the system without checking the disks
(optional)
 Fasthalt → Stop the system without checking the disks
(optional)
 halt → Command to stop the system (optional)
 ifconfig → Configure a network interface (optional)

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/usr

 The largest share of data on a system

 the most important directories in the
system as it contains all the user
binaries, their documentation,
libraries, header files, etc.... X and its
supporting libraries, and User
programs like telnet, ftp, etc.... as
well, can be found here.

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/var

 Contains variable data, files and

directories the system must be able
to write to during operation, like
system logging files, mail and printer
spool directories, and transient and
temporary files

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Lecture End