The files that are installed by pkgsrc are organized in a way that is similar to what you find in the /usr directory of the base system. But some details are different. This is because pkgsrc initially came from FreeBSD and had adopted its file system hierarchy. Later it was largely influenced by NetBSD. But no matter which operating system you are using pkgsrc with, you can expect the same layout for pkgsrc.

There are mainly four root directories for pkgsrc, which are all configurable in the bootstrap/bootstrap script. When pkgsrc has been installed as root, the default locations are:

LOCALBASE=              /usr/pkg
PKG_SYSCONFBASE=        /usr/pkg/etc
VARBASE=                /var
PKG_DBDIR=              /usr/pkg/pkgdb

In unprivileged mode (when pkgsrc has been installed as any other user), the default locations are:

LOCALBASE=              ${HOME}/pkg
PKG_SYSCONFBASE=        ${HOME}/pkg/etc
VARBASE=                ${HOME}/pkg/var
PKG_DBDIR=              ${HOME}/pkg/pkgdb

What these four directories are for, and what they look like is explained below.

  • LOCALBASE corresponds to the /usr directory in the base system. It is the “main” directory where the files are installed and contains the well-known subdirectories like bin, include, lib, share and sbin.

  • VARBASE corresponds to /var in the base system. Some programs (especially games, network daemons) need write access to it during normal operation.

  • PKG_SYSCONFDIR corresponds to /etc in the base system. It contains configuration files of the packages, as well as pkgsrc’s mk.conf itself.

9.1. File system layout in ${LOCALBASE}

The following directories exist in a typical pkgsrc installation in ${LOCALBASE}.

bin Contains executable programs that are intended to be directly used by the end user.

emul Contains files for the emulation layers of various other operating systems, especially for NetBSD.

etc (the usual location of ${PKG_SYSCONFDIR}) Contains the configuration files.

include Contains headers for the C and C++ programming languages.

info Contains GNU info files of various packages.

lib Contains shared and static libraries.

libdata Contains data files that don’t change after installation. Other data files belong into ${VARBASE}.

libexec Contains programs that are not intended to be used by end users, such as helper programs or network daemons.

libexec/cgi-bin Contains programs that are intended to be executed as CGI scripts by a web server.

man (the usual value of ${PKGMANDIR}) Contains brief documentation in form of manual pages.

sbin Contains programs that are intended to be used only by the super-user.

share Contains platform-independent data files that don' change after installation.

share/doc Contains documentation files provided by the packages.

share/examples Contains example files provided by the packages. Among others, the original configuration files are saved here and copied to ${PKG_SYSCONFDIR} during installation.

share/examples/rc.d Contains the original files for rc.d scripts.

var (the usual location of ${VARBASE}) Contains files that may be modified after installation.

9.2. File system layout in ${VARBASE}

db/pkg (the usual location of ${PKG_DBDIR}) Contains information about the currently installed packages.

games Contains highscore files.

log Contains log files.

run Contains informational files about daemons that are currently running.