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To: brooks@one-eyed-alien.net
From: "M. Warner Losh" <imp@bsdimp.com>
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Subject: Re: upgrade questions 4.10 -> 5-stable
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In message: <20040923184037.GE25699@odin.ac.hmc.edu>
            Brooks Davis <brooks@one-eyed-alien.net> writes:
: > I'm interested about directories that are changed by system/system
: > programs - I belive most confusing is /var in theory there shouldn't
: > be anything important there (well except logs), but I already noticed
: > there is mail, crontab jobs, informations what ports were installed
: > even mysql port install database there. 
: 
: By design /var contains things that change frequently during system
: operation, not things that are unimportant.  Thing in /var/run and
: /var/tmp are required to be things you can lose, but many of the rest of
: the directories are of crucial importance.

It used to be the case, long time ago (like 10-15 years), that /var
was irrelevant accross reboots, so many people got the idea that it
never would be unimportant.  In that ensuing years, /var has become
something that can contain more interesting files that should be
preserved.  That's the history that people have with /var.

Warner