From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Aug 23 03:15:58 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6B8C916A417 for ; Thu, 23 Aug 2007 03:15:58 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from andrewlylegould@gmail.com) Received: from nf-out-0910.google.com (nf-out-0910.google.com [64.233.182.184]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E33FD13C478 for ; Thu, 23 Aug 2007 03:15:57 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from andrewlylegould@gmail.com) Received: by nf-out-0910.google.com with SMTP id b2so325255nfb for ; Wed, 22 Aug 2007 20:15:56 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:references; b=F5pyDnDi33IXxyggXMG6PcqTcHo9z7du4tYROYloXzZML9Vr22Noy4dGsPlz9qljdQIEL8oe+8RBgHGqjJA0HwzD9eK9FFHhAKvYqLwO+mP2bl3PMkuxNWz6V6USYfqfsxHCp/Y20r5JPXHfDFk9BmchAsi0X/FaTjleGJi+7TY= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:references; b=WSmTG9q8cTCjDQrFzinuktgmvkoQEr+fX3a3cUo742gYJ+VXuDeFcv+Vu38JQ7h4t6yrmfUjdoToWM+qUcHq/Aeb2ZVHJEx8IuXP2i6R8WwixT51+mfkdZNd9LHpQAnFw5soU3kYJpQ2tC7oHKwTbGhCp6ZPeLh9Fh1GvYbjRGU= Received: by 10.86.98.18 with SMTP id v18mr1008856fgb.1187837495807; Wed, 22 Aug 2007 19:51:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.86.68.18 with HTTP; Wed, 22 Aug 2007 19:51:35 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 21:51:35 -0500 From: "Andrew Gould" To: "Brad Waite" In-Reply-To: <56712.67.176.75.179.1187816225.squirrel@webmail.wcubed.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <56712.67.176.75.179.1187816225.squirrel@webmail.wcubed.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: /var or /usr for data? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 03:15:58 -0000 On 8/22/07, Brad Waite wrote: > > It would appear that the "proper" allocation of filesystems on FreeBSD is > to put all data in /usr. I'm used to this and have been doing it for > years. > > However, there's a few issues that keep coming up. A lot of the ports use > /var for data dirs. MySQL, Qmail, dspam are a few that I've had issues > with. > > Is there a canonical place to put data files on a modern FreeBSD server? > Figuring out the sizes for each partition is an exercise in frustration > when I don't know how big /var or /usr are going to grow. > > For now, I've changed the default config files for MySQL and dspam to use > /usr/local for data dirs, but is this the "right" thing to do? > > I used to put everything on /, but that created problems when I couldn't > fsck the single large partition and I had to boot from CD to fix things. > That's an issue when the server's not in the same state. > > A Solaris associate of mine is of the opinion that /usr should be able to > be mounted RO for security purposes. If /var was the default for all > add-ons and data, I could see that, but that wouldn't work the ways things > are now. > > I usually move the data directories (/usr/home, /usr/local/pgsql, /var/db/mysql, etc) to a separate, hard drive mounted at /data and create symbolic links back at the default locations. If you run out of space, you can move the data to a larger hard drive and either adjust the links or have the new drive mount at /data (or wherever you choose). I hope this helps. Andrew