1MTREE(5) BSD File Formats Manual MTREE(5) 2 3NAME 4 mtree — format of mtree dir hierarchy files 5 6DESCRIPTION 7 The mtree format is a textual format that describes a collection of 8 filesystem objects. Such files are typically used to create or verify 9 directory hierarchies. 10 11 General Format 12 An mtree file consists of a series of lines, each providing information 13 about a single filesystem object. Leading whitespace is always ignored. 14 15 When encoding file or pathnames, any backslash character or character 16 outside of the 95 printable ASCII characters must be encoded as a back‐ 17 slash followed by three octal digits. When reading mtree files, any ap‐ 18 pearance of a backslash followed by three octal digits should be con‐ 19 verted into the corresponding character. 20 21 Each line is interpreted independently as one of the following types: 22 23 Blank Blank lines are ignored. 24 25 Comment Lines beginning with # are ignored. 26 27 Special Lines beginning with / are special commands that influence 28 the interpretation of later lines. 29 30 Relative If the first whitespace-delimited word has no / characters, 31 it is the name of a file in the current directory. Any rela‐ 32 tive entry that describes a directory changes the current di‐ 33 rectory. 34 35 dot-dot As a special case, a relative entry with the filename .. 36 changes the current directory to the parent directory. Op‐ 37 tions on dot-dot entries are always ignored. 38 39 Full If the first whitespace-delimited word has a / character af‐ 40 ter the first character, it is the pathname of a file rela‐ 41 tive to the starting directory. There can be multiple full 42 entries describing the same file. 43 44 Some tools that process mtree files may require that multiple lines de‐ 45 scribing the same file occur consecutively. It is not permitted for the 46 same file to be mentioned using both a relative and a full file specifi‐ 47 cation. 48 49 Special commands 50 Two special commands are currently defined: 51 52 /set This command defines default values for one or more keywords. 53 It is followed on the same line by one or more whitespace- 54 separated keyword definitions. These definitions apply to 55 all following files that do not specify a value for that key‐ 56 word. 57 58 /unset This command removes any default value set by a previous /set 59 command. It is followed on the same line by one or more key‐ 60 words separated by whitespace. 61 62 Keywords 63 After the filename, a full or relative entry consists of zero or more 64 whitespace-separated keyword definitions. Each such definition consists 65 of a key from the following list immediately followed by an '=' sign and 66 a value. Software programs reading mtree files should warn about unrec‐ 67 ognized keywords. 68 69 Currently supported keywords are as follows: 70 71 cksum The checksum of the file using the default algorithm speci‐ 72 fied by the cksum(1) utility. 73 74 device The device number for block or char file types. The value 75 must be one of the following forms: 76 77 format,major,minor[,subunit] 78 A device with major, minor and optional subunit fields. 79 Their meaning is specified by the operating's system 80 format. See below for valid formats. 81 82 number 83 Opaque number (as stored on the file system). 84 85 The following values for format are recognized: native, 86 386bsd, 4bsd, bsdos, freebsd, hpux, isc, linux, netbsd, osf1, 87 sco, solaris, sunos, svr3, svr4, and ultrix. 88 89 See mknod(8) for more details. 90 91 contents The full pathname of a file that holds the contents of this 92 file. 93 94 flags The file flags as a symbolic name. See chflags(1) for infor‐ 95 mation on these names. If no flags are to be set the string 96 “none” may be used to override the current default. 97 98 gid The file group as a numeric value. 99 100 gname The file group as a symbolic name. 101 102 ignore Ignore any file hierarchy below this file. 103 104 inode The inode number. 105 106 link The target of the symbolic link when type=link. 107 108 md5 The MD5 message digest of the file. 109 110 md5digest A synonym for md5. 111 112 mode The current file's permissions as a numeric (octal) or sym‐ 113 bolic value. 114 115 nlink The number of hard links the file is expected to have. 116 117 nochange Make sure this file or directory exists but otherwise ignore 118 all attributes. 119 120 optional The file is optional; do not complain about the file if it is 121 not in the file hierarchy. 122 123 resdevice The “resident” device number of the file, e.g. the ID of the 124 device that contains the file. Its format is the same as the 125 one for device. 126 127 ripemd160digest 128 The RIPEMD160 message digest of the file. 129 130 rmd160 A synonym for ripemd160digest. 131 132 rmd160digest 133 A synonym for ripemd160digest. 134 135 sha1 The FIPS 160-1 (“SHA-1”) message digest of the file. 136 137 sha1digest A synonym for sha1. 138 139 sha256 The FIPS 180-2 (“SHA-256”) message digest of the file. 140 141 sha256digest 142 A synonym for sha256. 143 144 sha384 The FIPS 180-2 (“SHA-384”) message digest of the file. 145 146 sha384digest 147 A synonym for sha384. 148 149 sha512 The FIPS 180-2 (“SHA-512”) message digest of the file. 150 151 sha512digest 152 A synonym for sha512. 153 154 size The size, in bytes, of the file. 155 156 time The last modification time of the file. 157 158 type The type of the file; may be set to any one of the following: 159 160 block block special device 161 char character special device 162 dir directory 163 fifo fifo 164 file regular file 165 link symbolic link 166 socket socket 167 168 uid The file owner as a numeric value. 169 170 uname The file owner as a symbolic name. 171 172SEE ALSO 173 cksum(1), find(1), mtree(8) 174 175HISTORY 176 The mtree utility appeared in 4.3BSD-Reno. The MD5 digest capability was 177 added in FreeBSD 2.1, in response to the widespread use of programs which 178 can spoof cksum(1). The SHA-1 and RIPEMD160 digests were added in 179 FreeBSD 4.0, as new attacks have demonstrated weaknesses in MD5. The 180 SHA-256 digest was added in FreeBSD 6.0. Support for file flags was 181 added in FreeBSD 4.0, and mostly comes from NetBSD. The “full” entry 182 format was added by NetBSD. 183 184BSD September 4, 2013 BSD 185