MTREE(8)

NAME
mtree - map a directory hierarchy

SYNOPSIS
mtree [-cderux] [-f spec] [-K keywords] [-k keywords] [-p path] [-s seed]

DESCRIPTION
The utility mtree 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 specification, 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  Don't complain about files that are in the file hierarchy, but not in the specification.

-f  Read the specification from file, instead of from the standard input.

-K  Add the specified (whitespace or comma separated) keywords to the current set of keywords.

-k  Use the ``type'' keyword plus the specified (whitespace or comma separated) keywords instead of the current set of keywords.

-p  Use the file hierarchy rooted in path, instead of the current directory.

-r  Remove any files in the file hierarchy that are not described in the specification.

-s  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, and permissions of existing files to match the specification and create any missing directories. User, group, and permissions must all be specified for missing directories to be created. Exit with a status of 0 on success, 1 if any error occurred; a mismatch is not considered to be an error if it was corrected.

-u  Same as -U except a status of 2 is returned if the file hierarchy did not match the specification.

-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.

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.

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.

optional
    The file is optional; don't complain about the file if it's not in the file hierarchy.

uid The file owner as a numeric value.

uname
    The file owner as a symbolic name.

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

The default set of keywords are gid, link, mode, nlink, size, 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.

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 and -u options can be used in combination to create directory hierarchies for distributions and other such things.

FILES
/etc/mtree
    system specification directory

SEE ALSO
chmod(1), chgrp(1), cksum(1), stat(2), fts(3), chown(8)

HISTORY
The mtree utility appeared in 4.3BSD Reno.