The System folder is the directory in the classic Mac OS that holds various files required for the system to operate, such as fonts , system extensions, control panels, and preferences.
23-461: Note: On macOS, files in /Library are not loaded at boot time when booting into Safe Mode. The System Folder is normally located directly below the root directory in the filesystem hierarchy, but does not need to be. The Mac OS identifies the "System Folder" by undocumented characteristics that are independent of its name (it has different names in non-English versions of the Mac OS), or its location in
46-445: A computer file system , and primarily used in the Unix and Unix-like operating systems , the root directory is the first or top-most directory in a hierarchy. It can be likened to the trunk of a tree , as the starting point where all branches originate from. The root file system is the file system contained on the same disk partition on which the root directory is located; it
69-452: A different disk can be inserted into the drive. The system automatically notices that the disk has changed and updates the mount point contents to reflect the new medium. Similar functionality is found on Windows machines. An automounter will automatically mount a file system when a reference is made to the directory atop which it should be mounted. This is usually used for file systems on network servers, rather than relying on events such as
92-561: A new volume, the copy is "blessed" as well. On a system with more than one disk volume, it is thus easy to create functioning backups of a system simply by dragging the folder. It is also easy to maintain older and newer versions of the OS "in parallel", each on its own volume, and revert to the old one if problems are encountered with the new one. This degree of flexibility distinguishes the classic Mac OS from most other operating systems, including macOS. All versions of Mac OS permit multiple copies of
115-467: A reflection of their purpose. In many situations, file systems other than the root need to be available as soon as the operating system has booted. All Unix-like systems therefore provide a facility for mounting file systems at boot time. System administrators define these file systems in the configuration file fstab (vfstab in Solaris), which also indicates options and mount points. In some situations, there
138-425: A secluded environment to run software that requires legacy libraries and sometimes to simplify software installation and debugging. Chroot is not meant to be used for enhanced security as the processes inside can break out. Some Unix systems support a directory below the root directory. Normally, "/.." points back to the same inode as "/", however, under MUNIX [ de ] , this can be changed to point to
161-403: A super-root directory, where remote trees can be mounted. If, for example, two workstations "pcs2a" and "pcs2b" were connected via "connectnodes" and "uunite" startup script, "/../pcs2b" could be used to access the root directory of "pcs2b" from "pcs2a". Under DOS , OS/2 , and Microsoft Windows , each partition has a drive letter assignment (e.g. the C partition is labeled C:\ ) and there
184-438: Is a location in the partition used as a root filesystem. Many different types of storage exist, including magnetic, magneto-optical, optical, and semiconductor (solid-state) drives. Before any of them can be used for storage, the means by which information is read and written must be organized and knowledge of this must be available to the operating system. The organization is called a filesystem. Each different filesystem provides
207-439: Is a process by which a computer's operating system makes files and directories on a storage device (such as hard drive , CD-ROM , or network share ) available for users to access via the computer's file system . In general, the process of mounting comprises the operating system acquiring access to the storage medium; recognizing, reading, and processing file system structure and metadata on it before registering them to
230-522: Is no need to mount certain file systems at boot time, although their use may be desired thereafter. There are some utilities for Unix-like systems that allow the mounting of predefined file systems upon demand. Removable media have become very common with microcomputer platforms. They allow programs and data to be transferred between machines without a physical connection . Common examples include USB mass storage (flash drives), memory cards, CD-ROMs, and DVDs. Utilities have therefore been developed to detect
253-400: Is no public root directory on it. On many Unixes , there is also a directory named /root (pronounced "slash root"). This is the home directory of the 'root' superuser . On many Mac and iOS systems this superuser home directory is /var/root . A home page 's URL usually points to the root of the respective website 's domain name . Mount (computing) Mounting
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#1732851911084276-453: Is the filesystem on top of which all other file systems are mounted as the system boots up. Unix abstracts the nature of this tree hierarchy entirely and in Unix and Unix-like systems the root directory is denoted by the / (slash) sign. Though the root directory is conventionally referred to as / , the directory entry itself has no name – its path is the "empty" part before
299-465: The virtual file system (VFS) component. The location in the VFS to which the newly mounted medium was registered is called a " mount point "; when the mounting process is completed, the user can access files and directories on the medium from there. An opposite process of mounting is called unmounting , in which the operating system cuts off all user access to files and directories on the mount point, writes
322-585: The System or Finder files from it, which are the two files required for booting. (New World Macintoshes also need the Mac OS ROM file.) Some versions of the classic Mac OS, 8.5 and upwards, check the blessed System Folder before shutdown and warn the user if the System Folder is missing any of the key system files, to prevent them from inadvertently rendering the hard drive unbootable. An alternative to manually blessing
345-462: The directory hierarchy. The Macintosh Finder displays this "blessed" folder with a special icon. A "live" System Folder can freely be moved to any location in the directory hierarchy while the OS is operating, and it will continue to operate with no problems after the folder has been moved and after the system is restarted with the folder in its new location. When the Finder copies a "blessed" folder to
368-511: The host operating system with metadata so that it knows how to read and write data. When the medium (or media, when the filesystem is a volume filesystem as in RAID arrays) is mounted, these metadata are read by the operating system so that it can use the storage. Unix-like operating systems often include software and tools that assist in the mounting process and provide it new functionality. Some of these strategies have been coined "auto-mounting" as
391-407: The initial directory separator character ( / ). All file system entries, including mounted file systems are "branches" of this root. In UNIX-like operating systems, each process has its own idea of what the root directory is. For most processes this is the same as the system's actual root directory, but it can be changed by calling the chroot system call . This is typically done to create
414-466: The operating system on a single volume. Mac OS 9 added formal support for this by permitting the user to select from multiple copies of the system on the same volume via the Startup Disk control panel, primarily used for selecting which volume to boot from. Prior to this, one would have to manually bless the copy of the System Folder that they wished to use. A folder can be de-blessed by removing either
437-521: The presence and availability of a medium and then mount that medium without any user intervention. Some Unix-like systems have also introduced a concept called supermounting , as implemented in the Linux supermount-ng project. For example, a floppy disk that has been supermounted can be physically removed from the system. Under normal circumstances, the disk should have been synchronized and then unmounted before its removal. Provided synchronization has occurred,
460-425: The remaining queue of user data to the storage device, refreshes file system metadata, then relinquishes access to the device, making the storage device safe for removal. Normally, when the computer is shutting down , every mounted storage device will undergo an unmounting process to ensure that all queued data was written to it, and to preserve the integrity of the file system structure on the media. A mount point
483-506: The system folders in the Mac OS was to use a utility like System Picker . Blessing is continued for mactel machines running macOS with an EFI system, albeit in a mostly different manner. See EFI system partition § macOS and the two types of booting for Apple's BootX bootloader. The System Folder is less protected than the equivalent folders on macOS, in that the contents are all viewable and most files and folders are editable. However it
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#1732851911084506-664: Was made more convenient when Apple implemented the Extensions Manager , itself a Control Panel that was originally a shareware utility by Ricardo Batista. This allowed activation and deactivation of Control Panels, Extensions, Startup Items and Shutdown Items, and could be invoked fairly early in the boot process by holding down the space bar on the keyboard. One notable absence was the managements of Fonts . For this, Apple allowed Third-party development of font management programs such as Extensis Suitcase, Adobe Type Manager and AlSoft MasterJuggler . Root directory In
529-600: Was possible to prevent inexperienced users from accidentally altering the contents by using the Protect System Folder Contents checkbox in the General Controls Control Panel. The Startup and Shut Down programs, Appearance themes, control panels, fonts, and extensions, as well as items in the Apple Menu , are controlled by adding or removing items from folders in the System Folder. This process
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