NAME

     mtree — format of mtree dir hierarchy files

DESCRIPTION

     The mtree format is a textual format that describes a collection of filesystem objects.
     Such files are typically used to create or verify directory hierarchies.

   General Format
     An mtree file consists of a series of lines, each providing information about a single
     filesystem object.  Leading whitespace is always ignored.

     When encoding file or pathnames, any backslash character or character outside of the 95
     printable ASCII characters must be encoded as a a backslash followed by three octal digits.
     When reading mtree files, any appearance of a backslash followed by three octal digits
     should be converted into the corresponding character.

     Each line is interpreted independently as one of the following types:

     Signature   The first line of any mtree file must begin with “#mtree”.  If a file contains
                 any full path entries, the first line should begin with “#mtree v2.0”,
                 otherwise, the first line should begin with “#mtree v1.0”.

     Blank       Blank lines are ignored.

     Comment     Lines beginning with # are ignored.

     Special     Lines beginning with / are special commands that influence the interpretation of
                 later lines.

     Relative    If the first whitespace-delimited word has no / characters, it is the name of a
                 file in the current directory.  Any relative entry that describes a directory
                 changes the current directory.

     dot-dot     As a special case, a relative entry with the filename .. changes the current
                 directory to the parent directory.  Options on dot-dot entries are always
                 ignored.

     Full        If the first whitespace-delimited word has a / character after the first
                 character, it is the pathname of a file relative to the starting directory.
                 There can be multiple full entries describing the same file.

     Some tools that process mtree files may require that multiple lines describing the same file
     occur consecutively.  It is not permitted for the same file to be mentioned using both a
     relative and a full file specification.

   Special commands
     Two special commands are currently defined:

     /set        This command defines default values for one or more keywords.  It is followed on
                 the same line by one or more whitespace-separated keyword definitions.  These
                 definitions apply to all following files that do not specify a value for that
                 keyword.

     /unset      This command removes any default value set by a previous /set command.  It is
                 followed on the same line by one or more keywords separated by whitespace.

   Keywords
     After the filename, a full or relative entry consists of zero or more whitespace-separated
     keyword definitions.  Each such definition consists of a key from the following list
     immediately followed by an '=' sign and a value.  Software programs reading mtree files
     should warn about unrecognized keywords.

     Currently supported keywords are as follows:

     cksum       The checksum of the file using the default algorithm specified by the cksum(1)
                 utility.

     contents    The full pathname of a file that holds the contents of this file.

     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.

     gid         The file group as a numeric value.

     gname       The file group as a symbolic name.

     ignore      Ignore any file hierarchy below this file.

     link        The target of the symbolic link when type=link.

     md5         The MD5 message digest of the file.

     md5digest   A 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.

     ripemd160digest
                 The RIPEMD160 message digest of the file.

     rmd160      A synonym for ripemd160digest.

     rmd160digest
                 A synonym for ripemd160digest.

     sha1        The FIPS 160-1 (“SHA-1”) message digest of the file.

     sha1digest  A synonym for sha1.

     sha256      The FIPS 180-2 (“SHA-256”) message digest of the file.

     sha256digest
                 A synonym for sha256.

     size        The size, in bytes, of the file.

     time        The last modification time 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

     uid         The file owner as a numeric value.

     uname       The file owner as a symbolic name.

SEE ALSO

     cksum(1), find(1), mtree(8)

BUGS

     The FreeBSD implementation of mtree does not currently support the mtree 2.0 format.  The
     requirement for a “#mtree” signature line is new and not yet widely implemented.

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.  The SHA-256 digest was added in FreeBSD 6.0.  Support for file flags was
     added in FreeBSD 4.0, and mostly comes from NetBSD.  The “full” entry format was added by
     NetBSD.