From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Aug 7 02:40:25 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C3FAD16A4D0 for ; Sat, 7 Aug 2004 02:40:25 +0000 (GMT) Received: from web61308.mail.yahoo.com (web61308.mail.yahoo.com [216.155.196.151]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 5062943D53 for ; Sat, 7 Aug 2004 02:40:25 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from stheg_olloydson@yahoo.com) Message-ID: <20040807024024.76398.qmail@web61308.mail.yahoo.com> Received: from [67.34.130.149] by web61308.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Fri, 06 Aug 2004 19:40:24 PDT Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2004 19:40:24 -0700 (PDT) From: stheg olloydson To: questions@freebsd.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Subject: Re: file system setup for new system - recommendations? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 07 Aug 2004 02:40:25 -0000 it was said: by: "Jay O'Brien" > I'm confused, and I ask for your collective help. > > I successfully built a FreeBSD system using defaults. It works fine, > so far. I will start over and rebuild the system now, carefully > documenting each step. I will make some changes the second time. What > I have right now is not mission critical, I'm just using it to learn. > > I've learned that I need another partition to which I can write tar > backups and then ftp them to one of my windows machines on my LAN. So, > I've tried to identify the optimum configuration for the rebuild of my > machine to accommodate that need. I have a 120GB IDE HD, so I don't have > space problems. I presently have 128MB of RAM, but it looks like I > should plan to accommodate an increase to 1024GB in the future. > > I plan to host a few web pages, and hope to be able to ultimately run > a MTA and mail lists using majordomo or mailman in the future. I have > static IPs and permission to run a server on my internet access. > > I've tried to absorb input from the FreeBSD on-line handbook, from Greg > Lehey's "The Complete FreeBSD", and from Michael Lucases' "Absolute BSD". > What I read either conflicts or I just can't comprehend. Maybe I shouldn't > have tried to compare these sources? > > A Reference says keep the root section small, another says include /usr and > /var in root, there's a discussion of the relative speed of the outside of > a spinning HD to the middle of the HD, there's not an agreement on the > size of the swap space, and, as I said, I'm confused. > > Here's where I am, and I would appreciate your collective comments. I'm > persuaded to use 1026MB for swap, 8GB for root (/), 30GB for /backup tars, > and the remainder for /home. The /tmp, /usr, and /var directories would > be included in the 8MB root. Web pages and mailing lists would be in home. > I would be able to backup directories (or subdirectories) to tar files in > the backup directory of sizes that wouldn't choke my windows machines when > ftp'd to them for storage. > > When I rebuild my system, I don't want to do it again for a while. Should > I make root bigger? Should I have /tmp, /usr, and /var as separate > partitions as the default install did for me when I built the system I'm > learning on at present? > > If you had it to do all over again, given my parameters, what would you do? > > Jay O'Brien > Rio Linda, CA USA > Hello, First, I'll assume you intend to have a single IDE drive and that won't change for the life of this setup. Second, I'll accept your standard of what would _I_ do and not discuss the merits or philosophical differences of Messers. Lucas's and Lehey's recommendations. Finally, I'll assume you meant that you'll eventually have 1024MB (i.e. 1GB) of RAM, not 1024GB (i.e. 1TB). To begin, a 120GB drive is HUGE for a FBSD system relative to a Windows system, so you don't need to dole out space in a miserly fashion. However, you do need to be able to back up your data, so don't go nuts either. I tend to make my root partition 1GB. I have never needed this much space and could get by half that, but it's a nice round number, so why not? Because you will eventually have 1GB of RAM, I would allocate a /swap partition equal to twice the maximum RAM the motherboard can hold. Don't underestimate how long you will own the machine or the effort you will put into squeezing the last ounce of performance in the years to come. (Home machines tend to linger long after corporate machines have been surplussed.) And soon or later you'll be needing to post a core dump, so you may as well be ready for it. You say that you intend to "host a few web pages, and ...ultimately run a MTA and mail lists." This means you need a goodly amount of space in /var for the mail _and_ the logs associated with the mail/web/firewall programs, say 20-25GB (~20 percent of total drive space). The "few web pages" will become several domains as time goes by, say 15-20GB (~15 percent of total drive space) for /home or /www, whatever you call it. The space needed for /usr isn't really substanial, say 10-12GB. The hard part is figuring how much space you need for, "I would be able to backup directories (or subdirectories) to tar files in the backup directory of sizes that wouldn't choke my windows machines when ftp'd to them for storage." I have no idea what this entails, so say another 20-25GB for that. Thus, I have allocated between ~70-86GB. Leave the rest unallocated. Over time, one or more of these estimates will be too low. When that happens, you will be able to add space to the appropriate partition(s) and use growfs(8) to remedy the situation. This setup should last you a year or so. By then you'll want to optimize your setup, maybe have separate mail and web servers, whatever. It all depends on how much of your life FBSD takes over. HTH, Stheg __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com