17.10 Subdirectories

Try to let the port put things in the right subdirectories of PREFIX. Some ports lump everything and put it in the subdirectory with the port's name, which is incorrect. Also, many ports put everything except binaries, header files and manual pages in the a subdirectory of lib, which does not work well with the BSD paradigm. Many of the files should be moved to one of the following: etc (setup/configuration files), libexec (executables started internally), sbin (executables for superusers/managers), info (documentation for info browser) or share (architecture independent files). See hier(7) for details; the rules governing /usr pretty much apply to /usr/local too. The exception are ports dealing with USENET ``news''. They may use PREFIX/news as a destination for their files.

For questions about the FreeBSD ports system, e-mail <ports@FreeBSD.org>.
For questions about this documentation, e-mail <doc@FreeBSD.org>.

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