This seems counter-intuitive, but the reasoning behind it is that multiple instances of that configuration file may exist. Using the hosts example, there may be a specific host file needed for a File server and another one needed for a web server. From a file system perspective, they both exist under /etc/hosts, but they have different content. By having all possible /etc/hosts files existing under the directory /var/lib/bcfg2/etc/hosts/, we are able to more easily define which file goes to which group. However, even in the case where only one such variation of the file exists, that file still needs to be placed in the appropriate directory.

The two ways of ensuring that files of the same name but of differing content are sent to the correct clients are G (Group) files and H (Host) files.