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Date:      Tue, 21 Dec 1999 22:54:51 -0800 (PST)
From:      Roger Marquis <marquis@roble.com>
To:        freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   RE: partition sizes and securelevel questions
Message-ID:  <Pine.GSO.3.96.991221223625.20679A-100000@roble2.roble.com>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9912212035110.8256-100000@misery.sdf.com>

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>   Uhhh... some big problems with that.  /tmp should be a separate file
> system. 

That would depend on your applications.  /tmp isn't normally a separate
filesystem. 

> So that is 3 partitions so far.  "/" should be simple, so that
> gives you "/", "/tmp", "/usr", and "/var" for a minimum of 4 filesystems.
> 
>   Sizing filesystems is difficult, but using as one filesystem per disk is
> just plain wrong.  

I've setup dozens of servers this way and never had a problem.  Guess
one admin's "just plan wrong" is another's "works best".  In fact one
of the most frequent tech support calls we get is for help dealing with
filled partitions.  This is, 9 times out of 10, due to unnecessary
partitioning of one or two system disks.

> Filesystems should be created to separate the critical
> from the non-critical for one.  

Where there's a strong possibility that a user or application might fill a
critical filesystem perhaps, but that wouldn't be a normal system.

Also, when /tmp becomes full it can cause problems no matter what disk
it's on.  You don't necessarily gain anything by putting it on it's own
filesystem unless you have /var/spool/XXX or /var/tmp/XXX.  Of course a
runaway process might be using/filling these directories as well as
/tmp.  In the end, it's an application specific decision.

On large multi-user systems it is a good idea to separate system, user,
and application trees on their own filesystems.  But that scenario is
better addressed by dedicated NFS servers as opposed to local
partitions.

--
Roger Marquis
Roble Systems Consulting
http://www.roble.com/



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