Linux Administration
for Beginner
Part 4 : Files & Directories
with Basic Command Line
Andre B. Kramadibrata
Linux Directory Structure (1 of 5)
• /bin : All the executable binary programs (file) required during booting,
repairing, files required to run into single-user-mode, and other important,
basic commands viz., cat, du, df, tar, rpm, wc, history, etc.
• /boot : Holds important files during boot-up process, including Linux
Kernel.
• /dev : Contains device files for all the hardware devices on the machine
e.g., cdrom, cpu, etc
• /etc : Contains Application’s configuration files, startup, shutdown, start,
stop script for every individual program.
Linux Directory Structure (2 of 5)
• /home : Home directory of the users. Every time a new user is created, a
directory in the name of user is created within home directory which
contains other directories like Desktop, Downloads, Documents, etc.
• /lib : The Lib directory contains kernel modules and shared library images
required to boot the system and run commands in root file system.
• /lost+found : This Directory is installed during installation of Linux, useful
for recovering files which may be broken due to unexpected shut-down.
• /media : Temporary mount directory is created for removable devices viz.,
media/cdrom.
Linux Directory Structure (3 of 5)
• /mnt : Temporary mount directory for mounting file system.
• /opt : Optional is abbreviated as opt. Contains third party application
software. Viz., Java, etc.
• /proc : A virtual and pseudo file-system which contains information
about running process with a particular Process-id aka pid.
• /root : This is the home directory of root user and should never be
confused with ‘/‘
Linux Directory Structure (4 of 5)
• /run : This directory is the only clean solution for early-runtime-dir
problem.
• /sbin : Contains binary executable programs, required by System
Administrator, for Maintenance. Viz., iptables, fdisk, ifconfig, swapon,
reboot, etc.
• /srv : Service is abbreviated as ‘srv‘. This directory contains server specific
and service related files.
• /sys : Modern Linux distributions include a /sys directory as a virtual
filesystem, which stores and allows modification of the devices connected
to the system.
Linux Directory Structure (5 of 5)
• /tmp :System’s Temporary Directory, Accessible by users and root.
Stores temporary files for user and system, till next boot.
• /usr : Contains executable binaries, documentation, source code,
libraries for second level program.
• /var : Stands for variable. The contents of this file is expected to grow.
This directory contains log, lock, spool, mail and temp files.
