Android File Systems

Android Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟Android 5.1.1 Emulator File System Hierarchy

This section describes file system hierarchy used by the Android 5.1.1 emulator system.

On an Android system, file systems are mounted into a single file system hierarchy.

After connecting to the Android emulator with the "adb shell" command, I used "cd" and "ls" shell commands to explore the file system hierarchy. Here is what I see:

/ - Base file system
 acct - The mount point for the acct cgroup (control group),
        which provides for user accounting
 cache - A folder used as scratch pad by the system
 charger - A symbolic link to /sbin/healthd
 config - An empty folder
 d - A symbolic link to /sys/kernel/debug.
 data - Folder for user data stored as a separate partition
  adb - An empty folder for Android Debug Bridge
  anr - Folder for traces.txt usded by dalvikvm to dump stack trace
  app - Folder for user installed application package .apk files
  app-asec
  app-private
  dalivk-cache
  backup
  bugreports
  dalvik-cache
  data - Folder for application data with package name as sub folder
  dontpanic
  drm
  local
  ...
  system
 default.prop - File with default system settings
 dev - Folder of device pointers
  block - Folder of block device pointers
  ...
  null
  tty1
  tty2
  tty3
  etc - Folder for program configuration files
  file_contexts
  fstab.goldfish
 init - A binary program that processes the init.rc file.
 init.rc - File with initial configurations
 mnt - A mount point for other file systems
 proc - A mount point for the procfs file system, which provides
        access to kernel data structures.
  ...
  cpuinfo - File with current CPU information
  diskstats - File with disk statuses
  ...
  version
 root - The home folder for the root account.
 sbin - Folder for binary executable codes
  adbd - File with Android Debug Bridge Daemon (adbd) executable code
 sdcard - A symbolic link to /storage/sdcard
 storage -
 sys - A mount point for sysfs pseudo file system for kernel objects
 system - Folder for the operating system files - read only
  app - Folders for pre-installed application package .apk files
  bin - Folder for system binary executable codes
  build.prop - File containing configuration settings
  etc - Folder for configuration files
  fonts - Folder for font files
  framework - Folder for JAR and ODEX files of Android framework
  lib -  Folder contains binary code libraries like libc.so
  media - Folder for media files
  priv-app
  tts
  usr
  vendor
  xbin - Folder for binary executable files
 vendor - A symbolic link to /system/vendor