Linux Data directory

Data directory is used to store data of the system.

Data directory contains following directories.

• /home
• /root
• /srv
• /media
• /mnt
• /tmp

/home

The '/home' directory stores users personnel files. After the '/home' there is a directory which is generally named at the user's name like we have '/home/sssit'. Inside this directory we have our sub-directories like Desktop, Downloads, Documents, pictures, etc.

Example:

Look at the above snapshot, command "ls /home" displays 'sssit'. While command "ls /home/sssit" displays 'sssit' sub-directories.

Note: Tilde (~) sign indicates "/home/sssit". For example, if you want to give the command "/home/sssit/Desktop" so instead of writing this you can also write "~/Desktop", both are same.

/root

The '/root' directory is the home directory of the root user.

Please note that '/root' directory is different from (/) root.

/srv

The term 'srv' is short for service. The '/srv' directory contains server specific data for services provided by the system like www, cvs, rysync, ftp, etc.

/media

The '/media' directory acts as a mount point for removable media devices such as CD-Rom, floppy, USB devices, etc.

This is newly introduced directory and hence a system can run without this directory also.

Example:

Look at the below snapshot, command "ls /media" displays '/media' content.

/mnt

The term 'mnt' stands for mount. The '/mnt' directory should be empty and sysadmins can only mount temporary filesystems.

/tmp

The term 'tmp' stands for temporary. Data stored in '/tmp' is temporary and may use either disk space or RAM. When system is rebooted, files under this directory is automatically deleted. So it is advisable that never use '/tmp' to store important data.