MANPATH(5) /etc/manpath.config 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 hier-
archies (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.
SEARCH PATH
By default, man-db examines the user's $PATH. For each path_element
found there, it adds manpath_element to the search path.
If there is no MANPATH_MAP line in the configuration file for a given
path_element, then it adds all of path_element/../man, path_element/man,
path_element/../share/man, and path_element/share/man that exist as di-
rectories to the search path.
It then adds any MANDATORY_MANPATH entries from the configuration file
to the search path.
Finally, if the --systems option is used or the $SYSTEM environment
variable is set, then that should consist of a sequence of operating
system names separated by commas or colons. This acts as a template,
expanding the search path once more to allow access to other operating
systems' manual pages: for each system name, man-db looks for that name
as a subdirectory of each entry in the search path, and adds it to the
final search path if it exists. A system name of man inserts the normal
search path without subdirectories. For example, if the search path
would otherwise have been /usr/share/man:/usr/local/man, and $SYSTEM is
set to newOS:man, then the final search path will be
/usr/share/man/newOS:/usr/share/man:/usr/local/man/newOS:/usr/local/man.
The $MANPATH environment variable overrides man-db's default manual page
search paths. Most users should not need to set it. Its syntax is sim-
ilar to the $PATH environment variable: it consists of a sequence of di-
rectory names separated by colons. It overrides the default search path
described above.
If the value of $MANPATH starts with a colon, then the default search
path is added at its start. If the value of $MANPATH ends with a colon,
then the default search path is added at its end. If the value of $MAN-
PATH contains a double colon (::), then the default search path is in-
serted in the middle of the value, between the two colons.
FORMAT
The following field types are currently recognised:
# comment
Blank lines or those beginning with a # will be treated as com-
ments 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, cat-
path_element may be omitted.
Traditional cat placement would be impossible for read only
mounted manual page hierarchies and because of this it is possi-
ble 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 an-
other 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 vari-
ous programs (such as grep and tbl), and default sets of argu-
ments 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 3type 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 ef-
fect of this is that you only need to explicitly list extensions
if you want to force a particular order. Sections with exten-
sions 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 ter-
minal actually being used. This overrides MINCATWIDTH and MAX-
CATWIDTH.
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 com-
plicated.
https://gitlab.com/man-db/man-db/-/issues
https://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?group=man-db
2.13.1 2025-05-02 MANPATH(5)
Generated by dwww version 1.16 on Tue Dec 16 04:45:24 CET 2025.