MTREE(8)                  BSD System Manager's Manual                 MTREE(8)

NAME
     mtree -- map a directory hierarchy

SYNOPSIS
     mtree [-LPUcdeinqruxw] [-f spec] [-f spec] [-K keywords] [-k keywords]
           [-p path] [-s seed] [-X exclude-list]

DESCRIPTION
     The mtree utility compares the file hierarchy rooted in the current
     directory against a specification read from the standard input.  Messages
     are written to the standard output for any files whose characteristics do
     not match the specifications, or which are missing from either the file
     hierarchy or the specification.

     The options are as follows:

     -c    Print a specification for the file hierarchy to the standard out-
           put.

     -d    Ignore everything except directory type files.

     -e    Do not complain about files that are in the file hierarchy, but not
           in the specification.

     -f file
           Read the specification from file, instead of from the standard
           input.

           If this option is specified twice, the two specifications are com-
           pared with each other, rather than to the file hierarchy.  The
           specifications be sorted like output generated using -c.  The out-
           put format in this case is somewhat remniscent of comm(1), having
           "in first spec only", "in second spec only", and "different" col-
           umns, prefixed by zero, one and two TAB characters respectively.
           Each entry in the "different" column occupies two lines, one from
           each specification.

     -i    Indent the output 4 spaces each time a directory level is descended
           when create a specification with the -c option.  This does not
           affect either the /set statements or the comment before each direc-
           tory.  It does however affect the comment before the close of each
           directory.

     -K keywords
           Add the specified (whitespace or comma separated) keywords to the
           current set of keywords.

     -k keywords
           Use the ``type'' keyword plus the specified (whitespace or comma
           separated) keywords instead of the current set of keywords.

     -L    Follow all symbolic links in the file hierarchy.

     -n    Do not emit pathname comments when creating a specification.  Nor-
           mally a comment is emitted before each directory and before the
           close of that directory when using the -c option.

     -P    Do not follow symbolic links in the file hierarchy, instead con-
           sider the symbolic link itself in any comparisons.  This is the
           default.

     -p path
           Use the file hierarchy rooted in path, instead of the current
           directory.

     -q    Quiet mode.  Do not complain when a ``missing'' directory cannot be
           created because it already exists.  This occurs when the directory
           is a symbolic link.

     -r    Remove any files in the file hierarchy that are not described in
           the specification.

     -s seed
           Display a single checksum to the standard error output that repre-
           sents all of the files for which the keyword cksum was specified.
           The checksum is seeded with the specified value.

     -U    Modify the owner, group, permissions, and modification time of
           existing files to match the specification and create any missing
           directories or symbolic links.  User, group and permissions must
           all be specified for missing directories to be created.  Corrected
           mismatches are not considered errors.

     -u    Same as -U except a status of 2 is returned if the file hierarchy
           did not match the specification.

     -w    Make some error conditions non-fatal warnings.

     -X exclude-list
           The specified file contains fnmatch(3) patterns matching files to
           be excluded from the specification, one to a line.  If the pattern
           contains a `/' character, it will be matched against entire path-
           names (relative to the starting directory); otherwise, it will be
           matched against basenames only.  No comments are allowed in the
           exclude-list file.

     -x    Do not descend below mount points in the file hierarchy.

     Specifications are mostly composed of ``keywords'', i.e., strings that
     specify values relating to files.  No keywords have default values, and
     if a keyword has no value set, no checks based on it are performed.

     Currently supported keywords are as follows:

     cksum       The checksum of the file using the default algorithm speci-
                 fied by the cksum(1) utility.

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

     ignore      Ignore any file hierarchy below this file.

     gid         The file group as a numeric value.

     gname       The file group as a symbolic name.

     md5digest   The MD5 message digest of the file.

     sha1digest  The FIPS 160-1 (``SHA-1'') message digest of the file.

     ripemd160digest
                 The RIPEMD160 message digest of the file.

     mode        The current file's permissions as a numeric (octal) or sym-
                 bolic 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.

     uid         The file owner as a numeric value.

     uname       The file owner as a symbolic name.

     size        The size, in bytes, of the file.

     link        The file the symbolic link is expected to reference.

     time        The last modification time of the file.

     btime       The creation (birth) time of the file.

     atime       The last access time of the file.

     ctime       The last metadata modification time of the file.

     ptime       The time the file was added to its parent folder.

     inode       The inode number of the file.

     xattrsdigest
                 Digest of the extended attributes of the file.

     acldigest   Digest of the access control list 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

     The default set of keywords are flags, gid, mode, nlink, size, link,
     time, and uid.

     There are four types of lines in a specification.

     The first type of line sets a global value for a keyword, and consists of
     the string ``/set'' followed by whitespace, followed by sets of key-
     word/value pairs, separated by whitespace.  Keyword/value pairs consist
     of a keyword, followed by an equals sign (``=''), followed by a value,
     without whitespace characters.  Once a keyword has been set, its value
     remains unchanged until either reset or unset.

     The second type of line unsets keywords and consists of the string
     ``/unset'', followed by whitespace, followed by one or more keywords,
     separated by whitespace.

     The third type of line is a file specification and consists of a file
     name, followed by whitespace, followed by zero or more whitespace sepa-
     rated keyword/value pairs.  The file name may be preceded by whitespace
     characters.  The file name may contain any of the standard file name
     matching characters (``['', ``]'', ``?'' or ``*''), in which case files
     in the hierarchy will be associated with the first pattern that they
     match.

     Each of the keyword/value pairs consist of a keyword, followed by an
     equals sign (``=''), followed by the keyword's value, without whitespace
     characters.  These values override, without changing, the global value of
     the corresponding keyword.

     All paths are relative.  Specifying a directory will cause subsequent
     files to be searched for in that directory hierarchy.  Which brings us to
     the last type of line in a specification: a line containing only the
     string ``..'' causes the current directory path to ascend one level.

     Empty lines and lines whose first non-whitespace character is a hash mark
     (``#'') are ignored.

     The mtree utility exits with a status of 0 on success, 1 if any error
     occurred, and 2 if the file hierarchy did not match the specification.  A
     status of 2 is converted to a status of 0 if the -U option is used.

FILES
     /etc/mtree  system specification directory

EXIT STATUS
     The mtree utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

EXAMPLES
     The -d and -u options can be used in combination to create directory
     hierarchies for distributions and other such things; the files in
     /etc/mtree were used to create almost all directories in this FreeBSD
     distribution.

SEE ALSO
     chflags(1), chgrp(1), chmod(1), cksum(1), md5(1), stat(2), fts(3),
     md5(3), chown(8)

HISTORY
     The mtree utility appeared in 4.3BSD-Reno.  The MD5 digest capability was
     added in FreeBSD 2.1, in response to the widespread use of programs which
     can spoof cksum(1).  The SHA-1 and RIPEMD160 digests were added in
     FreeBSD 4.0, as new attacks have demonstrated weaknesses in MD5.  Support
     for file flags was added in FreeBSD 4.0, and mostly comes from NetBSD.

BSD                             March 29, 2005                             BSD