## Repository types and locations

Also unlike git, an OSTree repository can be in one of two separate modes: `bare` and `archive-z2`. A bare repository is one where content files are just stored as regular files; it's designed to be the source of a "hardlink farm", where each operating system checkout is merely links into it. If you want to store files owned by e.g. root in this mode, you must run OSTree as root. In contrast, the `archive-z2` mode is designed for serving via plain HTTP. Like tar files, it can be read/written by non-root users.

On an OSTree-deployed system, the "system repository" is `/ostree/repo`. It can be read by any uid, but only written by root. Unless the `--repo` argument is given to the ostree command, it will operate on the system repository.