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MTREE(8) System Manager's Manual MTREE(8)
NAME
mtree - map a directory hierarchy
SYNOPSIS
mtree [-bCcDdejLlMnPqrStUuWx] [-i | -m] [-E tags] [-F flavor] [-f spec]
[-I tags] [-K keywords] [-k keywords] [-N dbdir] [-O onlyfile]
[-p path] [-R keywords] [-s seed] [-X exclude-file]
DESCRIPTION
The mtree utility compares a file hierarchy against a specification,
creates a specification for a file hierarchy, or modifies a
specification.
The default action, if not overridden by command line options, is to
compare 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
specification, or which are missing from either the file hierarchy or the
specification.
The options are as follows:
-b Suppress blank lines before entering and after exiting
directories.
-C Convert a specification into a format that's easier to parse
with various tools. The input specification is read from
standard input or from the file given by -f spec. In the
output, each file or directory is represented using a single
line (which might be very long). The full path name
(beginning with `./') is always printed as the first field;
-K, -k, and -R can be used to control which other keywords
are printed; -E and -I can be used to control which files are
printed; and the -S option can be used to sort the output.
-c Print a specification for the file hierarchy originating at
the current working directory (or the directory provided by
-p path) to the standard output. The output is in a style
using relative path names.
-D As per -C, except that the path name is always printed as the
last field instead of the first.
-d Ignore everything except directory type files.
-E tags Add the comma separated tags to the "exclusion" list. Non-
directories with tags which are in the exclusion list are not
printed with -C and -D.
-e Don't complain about files that are in the file hierarchy,
but not in the specification.
-F flavor Set the compatibility flavor of the mtree utility. The
flavor can be one of mtree, freebsd9, or netbsd6. The
default is mtree. The freebsd9 and netbsd6 flavors attempt
to preserve output compatibility and command line option
backward compatibility with FreeBSD 9.0 and NetBSD 6.0
respectively.
-f spec Read the specification from file, instead of from the
standard input.
If this option is specified twice, the two specifications are
compared to each other rather than to the file hierarchy.
The specifications will be sorted like output generated using
-c. The output format in this case is somewhat reminiscent
of comm(1), having "in first spec only", "in second spec
only", and "different" columns, prefixed by zero, one and two
TAB characters respectively. Each entry in the "different"
column occupies two lines, one from each specification.
-I tags Add the comma separated tags to the "inclusion" list. Non-
directories with tags which are in the inclusion list are
printed with -C and -D. If no inclusion list is provided,
the default is to display all files.
-i If specified, set the `schg' and/or `sappnd' flags.
-j Indent the output 4 spaces each time a directory level is
descended when creating a specification with the -c option.
This does not affect either the `/set' statements or the
comment before each directory. It does however affect the
comment before the close of each directory. This is the
equivalent of the -i option in the FreeBSD version of mtree.
-K keywords
Add the specified (whitespace or comma separated) keywords to
the current set of keywords. If `all' is specified, add all
of the other keywords.
-k keywords
Use the type keyword plus the specified (whitespace or comma
separated) keywords instead of the current set of keywords.
If `all' is specified, use all of the other keywords. If the
type keyword is not desired, suppress it with -R type.
-L Follow all symbolic links in the file hierarchy.
-l Do "loose" permissions checks, in which more stringent
permissions will match less stringent ones. For example, a
file marked mode 0444 will pass a check for mode 0644.
"Loose" checks apply only to read, write and execute
permissions -- in particular, if other bits like the sticky
bit or suid/sgid bits are set either in the specification or
the file, exact checking will be performed. This option may
not be set at the same time as the -U or -u option.
-M Permit merging of specification entries with different types,
with the last entry taking precedence.
-m If the `schg' and/or `sappnd' flags are specified, reset
these flags. Note that this is only possible with
securelevel less than 1 (i.e., in single user mode or while
the system is running in insecure mode). See init(8) for
information on security levels.
-n Do not emit pathname comments when creating a specification.
Normally a comment is emitted before each directory and
before the close of that directory when using the -c option.
-N dbdir Use the user database text file master.passwd and group
database text file group from dbdir, rather than using the
results from the system's getpwnam(3) and getgrnam(3) (and
related) library calls.
-O onlypaths
Only include files included in this list of pathnames.
-P Don't follow symbolic links in the file hierarchy, instead
consider 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 keywords
Remove the specified (whitespace or comma separated) keywords
from the current set of keywords. If `all' is specified,
remove all of the other keywords.
-r Remove any files in the file hierarchy that are not described
in the specification. Repeating the flag more than once will
attempt to reset all the file flags via lchflags(2) before
attempting to remove the file in case the file was immutable.
-S When reading a specification into an internal data structure,
sort the entries. Sorting will affect the order of the
output produced by the -C or -D options, and will also affect
the order in which missing entries are created or reported
when a directory tree is checked against a specification.
The sort order is the same as that used by the -c option,
which is that entries within the same directory are sorted in
the order used by strcmp(3), except that entries for
subdirectories sort after other entries. By default, if the
-S option is not used, entries within the same directory are
collected together (separated from entries for other
directories), but not sorted.
-s seed Display a single checksum to the standard error output that
represents all of the files for which the keyword cksum was
specified. The checksum is seeded with the specified value.
-t Modify the modified time of existing files, the device type
of devices, and symbolic link targets, to match the
specification.
-U Same as -u except that a mismatch is not considered to be an
error if it was corrected.
-u Modify the owner, group, permissions, and flags of existing
files, the device type of devices, and symbolic link targets,
to match the specification. Create any missing directories,
devices or symbolic links. User, group, and permissions must
all be specified for missing directories to be created. Note
that unless the -i option is given, the schg and sappnd flags
will not be set, even if specified. If -m is given, these
flags will be reset. Exit with a status of 0 on success, 2
if the file hierarchy did not match the specification, and 1
if any other error occurred.
-W Don't attempt to set various file attributes such as the
ownership, mode, flags, or time when creating new directories
or changing existing entries. This option will be most
useful when used in conjunction with -U or -u.
-X exclude-file
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 pathnames (relative to the starting
directory); otherwise, it will be matched against basenames
only. Comments are permitted in the exclude-file file.
-x Don't descend below mount points in the file hierarchy.
Specifications are mostly composed of "keywords", i.e. strings that 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 specified by
the cksum(1) utility.
device The device number to use for block or char file types. The
argument must be one of the following forms:
format,major,minor
A device with major and minor fields, for an operating
system specified with format. See below for valid formats.
format,major,unit,subunit
A device with major, unit, and subunit fields, for an
operating system specified with format. (Currently this is
only supported by the bsdos format.)
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.
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. Note that
the schg and sappnd flags are treated specially (see the -i and
-m options).
ignore Ignore any file hierarchy below this file.
gid The file group as a numeric value.
gname The file group as a symbolic name.
link The file the symbolic link is expected to reference.
md5 The MD5 cryptographic message digest of the file.
md5digest
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; don't complain about the file if it's not
in the file hierarchy.
ripemd160digest
Synonym for rmd160.
rmd160 The RMD-160 cryptographic message digest of the file.
rmd160digest
Synonym for rmd160.
sha1 The SHA-1 cryptographic message digest of the file.
sha1digest
Synonym for sha1.
sha256 The 256-bits SHA-2 cryptographic message digest of the file.
sha256digest
Synonym for sha256.
sha384 The 384-bits SHA-2 cryptographic message digest of the file.
sha384digest
Synonym for sha384.
sha512 The 512-bits SHA-2 cryptographic message digest of the file.
sha512digest
Synonym for sha512.
size The size, in bytes, of the file.
tags Comma delimited tags to be matched with -E and -I. These may be
specified without leading or trailing commas, but will be stored
internally with them.
time The last modification time of the file, in second and
nanoseconds. The value should include a period character and
exactly nine digits after the period.
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.
The default set of keywords are flags, gid, link, mode, nlink, size,
time, type, and uid.
There are four types of lines in a specification:
1. Set global values for a keyword. This consists of the string `/set'
followed by whitespace, followed by sets of keyword/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.
2. Unset global values for a keyword. This consists of the string
`/unset', followed by whitespace, followed by one or more keywords,
separated by whitespace. If `all' is specified, unset all of the
keywords.
3. A file specification, consisting of a path name, followed by
whitespace, followed by zero or more whitespace separated
keyword/value pairs.
The path name may be preceded by whitespace characters. The path
name may contain any of the standard path name matching characters
(`[', `]', `?' or `*'), in which case files in the hierarchy will be
associated with the first pattern that they match. mtree uses
strsvis(3) (in VIS_OCTAL format) to encode path names containing
non-printable characters. Whitespace characters are encoded as
`\040' (space), `\011' (tab), and `\012' (new line). When flavor
netbsd6 is selected, strsvis(3) (in VIS_CSTYLE format) is used and
whitespace characters are encoded as `\s' (space), `\t' (tab), and
`\n' (new line). `#' characters in path names are escaped by a
preceding backslash `\' to distinguish them from comments.
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.
The first path name entry listed must be a directory named `.', as
this ensures that intermixing full and relative path names will work
consistently and correctly. Multiple entries for a directory named
`.' are permitted; the settings for the last such entry override
those of the existing entry.
A path name that contains a slash (`/') that is not the first
character will be treated as a full path (relative to the root of
the tree). All parent directories referenced in the path name must
exist. The current directory path used by relative path names will
be updated appropriately. Multiple entries for the same full path
are permitted if the types are the same (unless -M is given, in
which case the types may differ); in this case the settings for the
last entry take precedence.
A path name that does not contain a slash will be treated as a
relative path. Specifying a directory will cause subsequent files
to be searched for in that directory hierarchy.
4. A line containing only the string `..' which causes the current
directory path (used by relative paths) 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.
FILES
/etc/mtree system specification directory
EXAMPLES
To detect system binaries that have been "trojan horsed", it is
recommended that mtree be run on the file systems, and a copy of the
results stored on a different machine, or, at least, in encrypted form.
The seed for the -s option should not be an obvious value and the final
checksum should not be stored on-line under any circumstances! Then,
periodically, mtree should be run against the on-line specifications and
the final checksum compared with the previous value. While it is
possible for the bad guys to change the on-line specifications to conform
to their modified binaries, it shouldn't be possible for them to make it
produce the same final checksum value. If the final checksum value
changes, the off-line copies of the specification can be used to detect
which of the binaries have actually been modified.
The -d option can be used in combination with -U or -u to create
directory hierarchies for, for example, distributions.
COMPATIBILITY
The compatibility shims provided by the -F option are incomplete by
design. Known limitations are described below.
The freebsd9 flavor retains the default handling of lookup failures for
the uname and group keywords by replacing them with appropriate uid and
gid keywords rather than failing and reporting an error. The related -w
flag is a no-op rather than causing a warning to be printed and no
keyword to be emitted. The latter behavior is not emulated as it is
potentially dangerous in the face of /set statements.
The netbsd6 flavor does not replicate the historical bug that reported
time as seconds.nanoseconds without zero padding nanosecond values less
than 100000000.
SEE ALSO
chflags(1), chgrp(1), chmod(1), cksum(1), stat(2), fnmatch(3), fts(3),
strsvis(3), mtree(5), chown(8), mknod(8)
HISTORY
The mtree utility appeared in 4.3BSD-Reno. The optional keyword appeared
in NetBSD 1.2. The -U option appeared in NetBSD 1.3. The flags and md5
keywords, and -i and -m options appeared in NetBSD 1.4. The device,
rmd160, sha1, tags, and all keywords, -D, -E, -I, -L, -l, -N, -P, -R, -W,
and -X options, and support for full paths appeared in NetBSD 1.6. The
sha256, sha384, and sha512 keywords appeared in NetBSD 3.0. The -S
option appeared in NetBSD 6.0.
NetBSD 10.99 December 2, 2023 NetBSD 10.99