Talk:Unix filesystem: Difference between revisions

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== /sbin's name ==

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)

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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)

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[[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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::::::::::11 years ago, I build my first Opteron based PC and there are 4 GB RAM, 10 GB swap, 10 GB root fs with 1 GB free space and /var/tmp is now on that space, so I have 10 GB of free space in /tmp and 1 GB of free space on /var/tmp. The ratio did not really change since 1988. But even on a newer server at my university, /var/tmp/ is not larger than /tmp. So the text introduced by [[User:Richiez]] is at least missleading and if we rate tmpfs, we should look at the original implementation instead of a Linux clone. [[User:Schily|Schily]] ([[User talk:Schily|talk]]) 12:07, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

== Add the /run directory ==

The run directory is a new addition to Linux that contains files that programs need through reboots, because /tmp is vulnerable to getting wiped. Is this a useful addition to the article? I'm asking this because this is article for the industry standard Unix filesystem, and not anything added by an OS. <!-- Template:Unsigned --><small class="autosigned">—&nbsp;Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[User:One Blue Hat|One Blue Hat]] ([[User talk:One Blue Hat#top|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/One Blue Hat|contribs]]) 20:51, 16 January 2020 (UTC)</small> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

:{{u|One Blue Hat}}, I'd say probably not, because, as you said, this is based on the standard UNIX filesystem. [[User:Moonythedwarf|MoonyTheDwarf (Braden N.)]] ([[User talk:Moonythedwarf|talk]]) 20:55, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

::Yes - {{mono|/run}} is already covered in [[Filesystem Hierarchy Standard]], but not all Unix-like systems follow the FHS in its entirety. (macOS, for example, currently has {{mono|/var/run}} but not {{mono|/run}}.) [[User:Guy Harris|Guy Harris]] ([[User talk:Guy Harris|talk]]) 21:17, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

== Merge with [[Filesystem Hierarchy Standard]]? ==

The ''Conventional directory layout'' section contains information also in [[Filesystem Hierarchy Standard]]. Should the two be merged? <!-- Template:Unsigned IP --><small class="autosigned">—&nbsp;Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[Special:Contributions/151.53.72.73|151.53.72.73]] ([[User talk:151.53.72.73#top|talk]]) 23:22, 9 September 2020 (UTC)</small> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

:They both contain that information because the FHS is based on conventional UN*X usage, as per the quote from that section:

:{{quote|The details of the directory layout have varied over time. Although the file system layout is not part of the [[Single UNIX Specification]], several attempts exist to standardize (parts of) it, such as the [[UNIX System V|System V]] [[Application Binary Interface]], the [[Intel Binary Compatibility Standard]], the Common Operating System Environment, and [[Linux Foundation]]'s [[Filesystem Hierarchy Standard]] (FHS).}}

:I wish I could find a reference for this, but at least some of the layout comes from a proposal that some people at Sun made in the 1980's containing, among other things, the {{mono|/var}} directory; at least part of the goal was better support for [[diskless workstations]], with per-machine and shareable information divided up so that they could be on different remote-mounted file systems.

:Not every system that uses some form of the conventional layout follows the FHS. [[User:Guy Harris|Guy Harris]] ([[User talk:Guy Harris|talk]]) 00:23, 10 September 2020 (UTC)