MTREE(8) System Manager's Manual MTREE(8)
NAME
mtree – map a directory hierarchy
SYNOPSIS
mtree [-LPUcdeinqruxwD] [-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
output.
-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
compared with each other, rather than to the file hierarchy. The
specifications be sorted like output generated using -c. The
output format in this case is somewhat remniscent 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.
-D Do not set the XATTR_SHOWCOMPRESSION flag while processing extended
attributes.
-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
directory. 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.
Normally 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
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 Remove any files in the file hierarchy that are not described in
the specification.
-S Skip calculating the digest of the extended attributes of the file.
-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.
-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
pathnames (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
specified by the cksum(1) utility.
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.
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
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.
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.
nxattr The number of extended attributes the file is expected to
have.
dataless Whether the file is dataless or not. Folders will not be
materialized automatically if this option is provided.
protectionclass
The Data Protection class of the item. For more information,
see https://support.apple.com/guide/security/data-protection-
classes-secb010e978a/web
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
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.
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
separated 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.
macOS 15.2 March 29, 2005 macOS 15.2