/srv contains site-specific data which is
served by this system.
This main purpose of specifying this is so that users may find the
location of the data files for a particular service, and so that
services which require a single tree for readonly data, writable data
and scripts (such as cgi scripts) can be reasonably placed. Data that
is only of interest to a specific user should go in that users' home
directory. If the directory and file structure of the data is not
exposed to consumers, it should go in /var/lib.
The methodology used to name subdirectories of
/srv is unspecified as there is currently no
consensus on how this should be done. One method for structuring data
under /srv is by protocol,
eg. ftp, rsync,
www, and cvs. On large
systems it can be useful to structure /srv by
administrative context, such as /srv/physics/www,
/srv/compsci/cvs, etc. This setup will differ
from host to host. Therefore, no program should rely on a specific
subdirectory structure of /srv existing or data
necessarily being stored in /srv. However
/srv should always exist on FHS compliant systems
and should be used as the default location for such data.
Distributions must take care not to remove locally placed files in these directories without administrator permission. [20]
[20] This is particularly important as these areas will often contain both files initially installed by the distributor, and those added by the administrator.