manpath(5)
NAME
manpath - format of the /etc/manpath.config file
DESCRIPTION
The manpath configuration file is used by the manual page utilities to assess users' manpaths at run time, to indicate which manual page hierarchies (manpaths) are to be treated as system hierarchies and to assign them directories to be used for storing cat files. If the environment variable $MANPATH is already set, the information contained within /etc/manpath.config will not override it.
FORMAT
The following field types are currently recognised:
# comment
Blank lines or those beginning with a # will be treated as
comments and ignored.
MANDATORY_MANPATH manpath_element
Lines of this form indicate manpaths that every automatically
generated $MANPATH should contain. This will typically include
/usr/man.
MANPATH_MAP path_element manpath_element
Lines of this form set up $PATH to $MANPATH mappings. For each
path_element found in the user's $PATH, manpath_element will be
added to the $MANPATH.
MANDB_MAP manpath_element [ catpath_element ]
Lines of this form indicate which manpaths are to be treated as
system manpaths, and optionally where their cat files should be
stored. This field type is particularly important if man is a
setuid program, as (when in the system configuration file
/etc/manpath.config rather than the per-user configuration file
.manpath) it indicates which manual page hierarchies to access
as the setuid user and which as the invoking user.
The system manual page hierarchies are usually those stored
under /usr such as /usr/man, /usr/local/man and /usr/X11R6/man.
If cat pages from a particular manpath_element are not to be
stored or are to be stored in the traditional location,
catpath_element may be omitted.
Traditional cat placement would be impossible for read only
mounted manual page hierarchies and because of this it is
possible to specify any valid directory hierarchy for their
storage. To observe the Linux FSSTND the keyword `FSSTND can be
used in place of an actual directory.
Unfortunately, it is necessary to specify all system man tree
paths, including alternate operating system paths such as
/usr/man/sun and any NLS locale paths such as
/usr/man/de_DE.88591.
As the information is parsed line by line in the order written,
it is necessary for any manpath that is a sub-hierarchy of
another hierarchy to be listed first, otherwise an incorrect
match will be made. An example is that /usr/man/de_DE.88591
must come before /usr/man.
DEFINE key value
Lines of this form define miscellaneous configuration variables;
see the default configuration file for those variables used by
the manual pager utilities. They include default paths to
various programs (such as grep and tbl), and default sets of
arguments to those programs.
SECTION section ...
Lines of this form define the order in which manual sections
should be searched. If there are no SECTION directives in the
configuration file, the default is:
SECTION 1 n l 8 3 0 2 5 4 9 6 7
If multiple SECTION directives are given, their section lists
will be concatenated.
If a particular extension is not in this list (say, 1mh) it will
be displayed with the rest of the section it belongs to. The
effect of this is that you only need to explicitly list
extensions if you want to force a particular order. Sections
with extensions should usually be adjacent to their main section
(e.g. "1 1mh 8 ...").
SECTIONS is accepted as an alternative name for this directive.
MINCATWIDTH width
If the terminal width is less than width, cat pages will not be
created (if missing) or displayed. The default is 80.
MAXCATWIDTH width
If the terminal width is greater than width, cat pages will not
be created (if missing) or displayed. The default is 80.
CATWIDTH width
If width is non-zero, cat pages will always be formatted for a
terminal of the given width, regardless of the width of the
terminal actually being used. This should generally be within
the range set by MINCATWIDTH and MAXCATWIDTH.
NOCACHE
This flag prevents man(1) from creating cat pages automatically.
BUGS
Unless the rules above are followed and observed precisely, the manual pager utilities will not function as desired. The rules are overly complicated.
Opportunity
Personal Opportunity - Free software gives you access to billions of dollars of software at no cost. Use this software for your business, personal use or to develop a profitable skill. Access to source code provides access to a level of capabilities/information that companies protect though copyrights. Open source is a core component of the Internet and it is available to you. Leverage the billions of dollars in resources and capabilities to build a career, establish a business or change the world. The potential is endless for those who understand the opportunity.
Business Opportunity - Goldman Sachs, IBM and countless large corporations are leveraging open source to reduce costs, develop products and increase their bottom lines. Learn what these companies know about open source and how open source can give you the advantage.
Free Software
Free Software provides computer programs and capabilities at no cost but more importantly, it provides the freedom to run, edit, contribute to, and share the software. The importance of free software is a matter of access, not price. Software at no cost is a benefit but ownership rights to the software and source code is far more significant.
Free Office Software - The Libre Office suite provides top desktop productivity tools for free. This includes, a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation engine, drawing and flowcharting, database and math applications. Libre Office is available for Linux or Windows.
Free Books
The Free Books Library is a collection of thousands of the most popular public domain books in an online readable format. The collection includes great classical literature and more recent works where the U.S. copyright has expired. These books are yours to read and use without restrictions.
Source Code - Want to change a program or know how it works? Open Source provides the source code for its programs so that anyone can use, modify or learn how to write those programs themselves. Visit the GNU source code repositories to download the source.
Education
Study at Harvard, Stanford or MIT - Open edX provides free online courses from Harvard, MIT, Columbia, UC Berkeley and other top Universities. Hundreds of courses for almost all major subjects and course levels. Open edx also offers some paid courses and selected certifications.
Linux Manual Pages - A man or manual page is a form of software documentation found on Linux/Unix operating systems. Topics covered include computer programs (including library and system calls), formal standards and conventions, and even abstract concepts.
