Understanding the CentOS 7 filesystem hierarchy

We can compare a filesystem to a refrigerator, or any other storage with multiple shelves that is used for storing different items. These shelves or compartments help us to organize grocery items in our refrigerator by certain characteristics, such as shape, size, type, and so on. The same analogy is applicable to a filesystem, which is the epitome of storing and organizing collections of data and files in human-usable form.

A filesystem is organized in an inverted root tree design with / (a forward slash; pronounced root) as the root of the filesystem, and underneath /, we see the rest of the directories and subdirectories, as shown in the following diagram:

Important filesystem directories in CentOS 7

This layout of the filesystem hierarchy is described in the Linux Filesystem Hierarchy Standard.

Here, / represents two things...