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Pretty sure that sbin intially stood for static linked binaries. <span style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">— Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[Special:Contributions/173.55.202.3|173.55.202.3]] ([[User talk:173.55.202.3|talk]]) 08:16, 3 May 2012 (UTC)</span><!-- Template:Unsigned IP --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
:Given that <ttcode>/usr/sbin</ttcode> also exists, and doesn't contain statically-linked binaries, I'm not sure about that. [[User:Guy Harris|Guy Harris]] ([[User talk:Guy Harris|talk]]) 08:35, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
::I always understood it to mean "system administration binaries", but I can't remember ever having an explicit explanation of the name. [[User:Qwertyus|Q<small>VVERTYVS</small>]] <small>([[User talk:Qwertyus|hm?]])</small> 23:16, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
http://www.linuxbase.org/betaspecs/fhs/fhs/ch04s07.html
:That URL has "betaspecs" in it; [http://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/FHS_2.3/fhs-2.3.html#THEUSRHIERARCHY the /usr section of the 2.3 version of the FHS] doesn't mention <ttcode>/usr/libexec</ttcode>. Is there a later official version of the FHS that includes it, or is this something that will appear in a future release, such as 3.0? [[User:Guy Harris|Guy Harris]] ([[User talk:Guy Harris|talk]]) 01:33, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
== So where did /sbin, /usr/sbin, and /var come from? ==
Actually, unless my memories are too faded, I ''know'' where they came from - some people at Sun, around the time SunOS 4.0 was being developed, were making some changes to the directory layout, oriented towards NFS-only diskless workstations (when Sun were killing of the ND remote-disk-access protocol), and one of the changes was the introduction of <ttcode>/var</ttcode> (to separate read-only stuff in <ttcode>/usr</ttcode>, with diskless workstations mounting the same export on <ttcode>/usr</ttcode>, from read-write stuff in <ttcode>/var</ttcode>, with each diskless workstation mounting its own private directory tree on <ttcode>/var</ttcode>), and another was splitting (<ttcode>/usr</ttcode>)<ttcode>/bin</ttcode> from (<ttcode>/usr</ttcode>)<ttcode>/sbin</ttcode> (not related to diskless workstations, but it was a cleanup done while they were at it, so that users who didn't need the administrative tools didn't have to have them in their <ttcode>$PATH</ttcode>).
I seem to remember a document written describing this, and possibly even being circulated outside Sun (possibly amongst licensees of NFS and/or the BSD folk). However, I can't seem to find any trace of that document online. Anybody have less-faded memories than mine? [[User:Guy Harris|Guy Harris]] ([[User talk:Guy Harris|talk]]) 01:26, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
:I don't have the document you want, but wouldn't <ttcode>/sbin</ttcode> have been created for the same reason? In 4.3BSD/early System V, <ttcode>/etc</ttcode> contained (writable) configuration files as well as system programs, e.g. <ttcode>/etc/init</ttcode> (now <ttcode>/sbin/init</ttcode>). [[User:Qwertyus|Q<small>VVERTYVS</small>]] <small>([[User talk:Qwertyus|hm?]])</small> 09:58, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
::(<ttcode>/etc/init</ttcode> dates back even earlier, at least to V6.)
::Yeah, I think that was another reason for creating <ttcode>/sbin</ttcode>.
::I think the split between <ttcode>/sbin</ttcode> and <ttcode>/usr/sbin</ttcode>, and between <ttcode>/bin</ttcode> and <ttcode>/usr/bin</ttcode>, was between "stuff we don't want to require shared libraries" and "stuff that can use shared libraries"; "stuff we don't want to require shared libraries" included "stuff that had to run before we had the file system containing the shared libraries mounted", as well as "stuff we'd like to be able to run without shared libraries so that somebody can install a test build of a shared library after saving the old version, and then back out the change in case the new shared library doesn't work", so SunOS 4.0 had either <ttcode>/bin/mv</ttcode> or <ttcode>/bin/cp</ttcode> for putting the old shared library back.
::But this is all fading memories from the mid '80's, which is why I wish the stuff the Sun folks had written about this was available somewhere. [[User:Guy Harris|Guy Harris]] ([[User talk:Guy Harris|talk]]) 20:16, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
[[Special:Contributions/174.46.232.2|174.46.232.2]] ([[User talk:174.46.232.2|talk]]) 18:19, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
:That was the original split. The directory layout was changed in SunOS 4.0, with <ttcode>/sbin</ttcode> and <ttcode>/usr/sbin</ttcode> and </ttcode>/var</ttcode> being introduced, and with, as I remember, a bunch of stuff moved from <ttcode>/bin</ttcode> to <ttcode>/usr/bin</ttcode>. Diskless workstations had <ttcode>/bin</ttcode> on a per-machine root file system and <ttcode>/usr/bin</ttcode> on a shared read-only <ttcode>/usr</ttcode> file system, so they moved as many programs as possible to the shared <ttcode>/usr/bin</ttcode> and moved all ''writable'' files from the read-only <ttcode>/usr</ttcode> to a per-machine writable <ttcode>/var</ttcode>. [[User:Guy Harris|Guy Harris]] ([[User talk:Guy Harris|talk]]) 19:01, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
== Other Unices, other filesystems ==
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