Red Hat System Administration I
- Section Describe Linux File System Hierarchy Concepts
- Quiz: Describe Linux File System Hierarchy Concepts
- Specify Files by Name
- Quiz: Specify Files by Name
- Manage Files with Command-line Tools
- Guided Exercise: Manage Files with Command-line Tools
- Make Links Between Files
- Guided Exercise: Make Links Between Files
- Match File Names with Shell Expansions
- Quiz: Match File Names with Shell Expansions
- Lab: Manage Files from the Command Line
- Summary
Abstract
| Goal |
Copy, move, create, delete, and organize files from the Bash shell. |
| Objectives |
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| Sections |
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| Lab |
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Describe how Linux organizes files, and the purposes of various directories in the file-system hierarchy.
The Linux system stores all files on file systems, which are organized into a single inverted tree known as a file-system hierarchy. This hierarchy is an inverted tree because the tree root is at the top, and the branches of directories and subdirectories stretch below the root.
The / directory is the root directory at the top of the file-system hierarchy. The / character is also used as a directory separator in file names. For example, if etc is a subdirectory of the / directory, then refer to that directory as /etc. Likewise, if the /etc directory contains a file that is named issue, then refer to that file as /etc/issue.
Subdirectories of / are used for standardized purposes to organize files by type and purpose to make it easier to find files. For example, in the root directory, the /boot subdirectory is used for storing files to boot the system.
Note
The following terms help to describe file-system directory contents:
Static content remains unchanged until explicitly edited or reconfigured.
Dynamic or variable content might be modified or appended by active processes.
Persistent content remains after a reboot, such as configuration settings.
Runtime content from a process or from the system is deleted on reboot.
The following table lists some of the significant directories on the system by name and purpose.
Table 3.1. Significant Red Hat Enterprise Linux Directories
| Location | Purpose |
|---|---|
/boot
| Files to start the boot process. |
/dev
| Special device files that the system uses to access hardware. |
/etc
| System-specific configuration files. |
/home
| Home directory, where regular users store their data and configuration files. |
/root
| Home directory for the administrative superuser, root. |
/run
| Runtime data for processes that started since the last boot.
This data includes process ID files and lock files.
The contents of this directory are re-created on reboot.
This directory consolidates the /var/run and /var/lock directories from earlier versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. |
/tmp
| A world-writable space for temporary files.
Files that are not accessed, changed, or modified for 10 days are deleted from this directory automatically.
The /var/tmp directory is also a temporary directory, in which files that are not accessed, changed, or modified in more than 30 days are deleted automatically. |
/usr
| Installed software, shared libraries, including files, and read-only program data. Significant subdirectories in the /usr directory include the following commands:
|
/var
| System-specific variable data should persist between boots.
Files that dynamically change, such as databases, cache directories, log files, printer-spooled documents, and website content, might be found under /var. |
Important
In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 and later, four older directories in / have identical contents to their counterparts in /usr:
/binand/usr/bin/sbinand/usr/sbin/liband/usr/lib/lib64and/usr/lib64
Earlier versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux had distinct directories with different sets of files. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 and later, the directories in / are symbolic links to the matching directories in /usr.
References
hier(7) man page
