MTREE

Section: File Formats (5)
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BSD mandoc

NAME

mtree - format of mtree dir hierarchy files

DESCRIPTION

The format is a textual format that describes a collection of filesystem objects. Such files are typically used to create or verify directory hierarchies.

General Format

An file consists of a series of lines, each providing information about a single filesystem object. Leading whitespace is always ignored.

When encoding file or pathnames, any backslash character or character outside of the 95 printable ASCII characters must be encoded as a backslash followed by three octal digits. When reading mtree files, any appearance of a backslash followed by three octal digits should be converted into the corresponding character.

Each line is interpreted independently as one of the following types:

Blank: Blank lines are ignored.
Comment: Lines beginning with # are ignored.
Special: Lines beginning with / are special commands that influence the interpretation of later lines.
Relative: If the first whitespace-delimited word has no / characters, it is the name of a file in the current directory. Any relative entry that describes a directory changes the current directory.
dot-dot: As a special case, a relative entry with the filename .. changes the current directory to the parent directory. Options on dot-dot entries are always ignored.
Full: If the first whitespace-delimited word has a / character after the first character, it is the pathname of a file relative to the starting directory. There can be multiple full entries describing the same file.

Some tools that process files may require that multiple lines describing the same file occur consecutively. It is not permitted for the same file to be mentioned using both a relative and a full file specification.

Special commands

Two special commands are currently defined:

/set: This command defines default values for one or more keywords. It is followed on the same line by one or more whitespace-separated keyword definitions. These definitions apply to all following files that do not specify a value for that keyword.
/unset: This command removes any default value set by a previous /set command. It is followed on the same line by one or more keywords separated by whitespace.

Keywords

After the filename, a full or relative entry consists of zero or more whitespace-separated keyword definitions. Each such definition consists of a key from the following list immediately followed by an '=' sign and a value. Software programs reading mtree files should warn about unrecognized keywords.

Currently supported keywords are as follows:

cksum

The checksum of the file using the default algorithm specified by the cksum(1) utility.

device

The device number for block or char file types. The value must be one of the following forms:

format , major , minor Bo , subunit Bc A device with: major , minor and optional subunit fields. Their meaning is specified by the operating's system format See below for valid formats.
number: Opaque number (as stored on the file system).

The following values for format are recognized: native 386bsd 4bsd bsdos freebsd hpux isc linux netbsd osf1 sco solaris sunos svr3 svr4 and ultrix

See mknod(8) for more details.

contents

The full pathname of a file that holds the contents of this file.

flags

The file flags as a symbolic name. See chflags(1) for information on these names. If no flags are to be set the string ``none'' may be used to override the current default.

gid

The file group as a numeric value.

gname

The file group as a symbolic name.

ignore

Ignore any file hierarchy below this file.

inode

The inode number.

link

The target of the symbolic link when type=link.

md5

The MD5 message digest of the file.

md5digest

A synonym for md5

mode

The current file's permissions as a numeric (octal) or symbolic value.

nlink

The number of hard links the file is expected to have.

nochange

Make sure this file or directory exists but otherwise ignore all attributes.

optional

The file is optional; do not complain about the file if it is not in the file hierarchy.

resdevice

The ``resident'' device number of the file, e.g. the ID of the device that contains the file. Its format is the same as the one for device

ripemd160digest

The RIPEMD160 message digest of the file.

rmd160

A synonym for ripemd160digest

rmd160digest

A synonym for ripemd160digest

sha1

The FIPS 160-1 (``SHA-1 '' ) message digest of the file.

sha1digest

A synonym for sha1

sha256

The FIPS 180-2 (``SHA-256 '' ) message digest of the file.

sha256digest

A synonym for sha256

sha384

The FIPS 180-2 (``SHA-384 '' ) message digest of the file.

sha384digest

A synonym for sha384

sha512

The FIPS 180-2 (``SHA-512 '' ) message digest of the file.

sha512digest

A synonym for sha512

size

The size, in bytes, of the file.

time

The last modification time of the file.

type

The type of the file; may be set to any one of the following:

block: block special device
char: character special device
dir: directory
fifo: fifo
file: regular file
link: symbolic link
socket: socket

uid

The file owner as a numeric value.

uname

The file owner as a symbolic name.

HISTORY

The utility appeared in BSD 4.3 Reno The MD5 digest capability was added in Fx 2.1 , in response to the widespread use of programs which can spoof cksum(1). The SHA-1 and RIPEMD160 digests were added in Fx 4.0 , as new attacks have demonstrated weaknesses in MD5 The SHA-256 digest was added in Fx 6.0 . Support for file flags was added in Fx 4.0 , and mostly comes from Nx . The ``full'' entry format was added by Nx .