man.conf.5

   1 .\"     $Id: man.conf.5,v 1.5 2017/08/22 18:17:52 schwarze Exp $
   2 .\"
   3 .\" Copyright (c) 2015 Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org>
   4 .\"
   5 .\" Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any
   6 .\" purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
   7 .\" copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.
   8 .\"
   9 .\" THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES
  10 .\" WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
  11 .\" MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR
  12 .\" ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
  13 .\" WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN
  14 .\" ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF
  15 .\" OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
  16 .\"
  17 .Dd $Mdocdate: August 22 2017 $
  18 .Dt MAN.CONF 5
  19 .Os
  20 .Sh NAME
  21 .Nm man.conf
  22 .Nd configuration file for man
  23 .Sh DESCRIPTION
  24 This is the configuration file
  25 for the
  26 .Xr man 1 ,
  27 .Xr apropos 1 ,
  28 and
  29 .Xr makewhatis 8
  30 utilities.
  31 Its presence, and all directives, are optional.
  32 .Pp
  33 This file is an ASCII text file.
  34 Leading whitespace on lines, lines starting with
  35 .Sq # ,
  36 and blank lines are ignored.
  37 Words are separated by whitespace.
  38 The first word on each line is the name of a configuration directive.
  39 .Pp
  40 The following directives are supported:
  41 .Bl -tag -width Ds
  42 .It Ic manpath Ar path
  43 Override the default search
  44 .Ar path
  45 for
  46 .Xr man 1 ,
  47 .Xr apropos 1 ,
  48 and
  49 .Xr makewhatis 8 .
  50 It can be used multiple times to specify multiple paths,
  51 with the order determining the manual page search order.
  52 .Pp
  53 Each path is a tree containing subdirectories
  54 whose names consist of the strings
  55 .Sq man
  56 and/or
  57 .Sq cat
  58 followed by the names of sections, usually single digits.
  59 The former are supposed to contain unformatted manual pages in
  60 .Xr mdoc 7
  61 and/or
  62 .Xr man 7
  63 format; file names should end with the name of the section
  64 preceded by a dot.
  65 The latter should contain preformatted manual pages;
  66 file names should end with
  67 .Ql .0 .
  68 .Pp
  69 Creating a
  70 .Xr mandoc.db 5
  71 database with
  72 .Xr makewhatis 8
  73 in each directory configured with
  74 .Ic manpath
  75 is recommended and necessary for
  76 .Xr apropos 1
  77 to work, and also for
  78 .Xr man 1
  79 on operating systems like
  80 .Ox
  81 that install each manual page with only one file name in the file system,
  82 even if it documents multiple utilities or functions.
  83 .It Ic output Ar option Op Ar value
  84 Configure the default value of an output option.
  85 These directives are overridden by the
  86 .Fl O
  87 command line options of the same names.
  88 For details, see the
  89 .Xr mandoc 1
  90 manual.
  91 .Pp
  92 .Bl -column fragment integer "ascii, utf8" -compact
  93 .It Ar option   Ta Ar value Ta used by Fl T Ta purpose
  94 .It Ta Ta Ta
  95 .It Ic fragment Ta none     Ta Cm html Ta print only body
  96 .It Ic includes Ta string   Ta Cm html Ta path to header files
  97 .It Ic indent   Ta integer  Ta Cm ascii , utf8 Ta left margin
  98 .It Ic man      Ta string   Ta Cm html Ta path for \&Xr links
  99 .It Ic paper    Ta string   Ta Cm ps , pdf Ta paper size
 100 .It Ic style    Ta string   Ta Cm html Ta CSS file
 101 .It Ic width    Ta integer  Ta Cm ascii , utf8 Ta right margin
 102 .El
 103 .It Ic _whatdb Ar path Ns Cm /whatis.db
 104 This directive provides the same functionality as
 105 .Ic manpath ,
 106 but using a historic and misleading syntax.
 107 It is kept for backward compatibility for now,
 108 but will eventually be removed.
 109 .El
 110 .Sh FILES
 111 .Pa /etc/man.conf
 112 .Sh EXAMPLES
 113 The following configuration file reproduces the defaults:
 114 installing it is equivalent to not having a
 115 .Nm
 116 file at all.
 117 .Bd -literal -offset indent
 118 manpath /usr/share/man
 119 manpath /usr/X11R6/man
 120 manpath /usr/local/man
 121 .Ed
 122 .Sh SEE ALSO
 123 .Xr apropos 1 ,
 124 .Xr man 1 ,
 125 .Xr makewhatis 8
 126 .Sh HISTORY
 127 A relatively complicated
 128 .Nm
 129 file format first appeared in
 130 .Bx 4.3 Reno .
 131 For
 132 .Ox 5.8 ,
 133 it was redesigned from scratch, aiming for simplicity.
 134 .Sh AUTHORS
 135 .An Ingo Schwarze Aq Mt schwarze@openbsd.org