Okay, here's the partitioning scheme I'm contemplating for an 80
GB main drive on my PIII Slackware box. As I understand it, I
don't need a separate partition for /boot, and am thinking to
leave /usr as part of the / partition to simplify upgrades and
avoid yet one more partition.

partition mount point use GB
--------- ----------- ---------- --
/dev/hda1 / system 6
/dev/hda2 swap page swapping 1
/dev/hda3 /home user files 30
/dev/hda5 /var logs, mail 5
/dev/hda6 /tmp temp files 1
/dev/hda7 /usr/local extra pkgs 2
/dev/hda8 /var/spool/news news spool 20
/dev/hda9 /var/www/html web content 15

My question has to do with /var. I have users who like to store
mail in their inbox, so I'm planning quite a lot of space for /var
(to accomodate /var/spool). My understanding is that /var and its
subdirectories don't need to be available to the kernel at boot.

Does this seem like a reasonable strategy?

--
Theodore (Ted) Heise <theo@heise.nu> Bloomington, IN, USA

Theodore Heise wrote:

>
> /dev/hda8 /var/spool/news news spool 20

Thats is IMHO a awful lot of space for news. The average news message is
only like 2KB and 20GB leaves room for more than 10.000.000 messages.
--
Thomas O.

This area is designed to become quite warm during normal operation.

Theodore Heise <theo@heise.nu> wrote:
>Okay, here's the partitioning scheme I'm contemplating for an 80
>GB main drive on my PIII Slackware box. As I understand it, I
>don't need a separate partition for /boot, and am thinking to
>leave /usr as part of the / partition to simplify upgrades and
>avoid yet one more partition.
>
>partition mount point use GB
>--------- ----------- ---------- --
>/dev/hda1 / system 6

I would separate /usr from the root fs. I would also have
/boot on a separate partition.

>/dev/hda2 swap page swapping 1
>/dev/hda3 /home user files 30
>/dev/hda5 /var logs, mail 5
>/dev/hda6 /tmp temp files 1

No real need for this. Add the space to /var, and symlink
/tmp and /usr/tmp to /var/tmp.

>/dev/hda7 /usr/local extra pkgs 2

Is that big enough?

>/dev/hda8 /var/spool/news news spool 20
>/dev/hda9 /var/www/html web content 15
>
>My question has to do with /var. I have users who like to store
>mail in their inbox, so I'm planning quite a lot of space for /var
>(to accomodate /var/spool). My understanding is that /var and its
>subdirectories don't need to be available to the kernel at boot.
>
>Does this seem like a reasonable strategy?

--
Floyd L. Davidson <http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson>
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) floyd@apaflo.com

On Sat, 24 Sep 2005 22:02:46 +0200,
Thomas Overgaard <thover@post2.tele.dk> wrote:
> Theodore Heise wrote:
>
>>
>> /dev/hda8 /var/spool/news news spool 20
>
> Thats is IMHO a awful lot of space for news. The average news message is
> only like 2KB and 20GB leaves room for more than 10.000.000 messages.

I agree, but I like very long retention times and am wanting to
increase them.

Was my thinking about /var okay?

--
Theodore (Ted) Heise <theo@heise.nu> Bloomington, IN, USA

Thomas Overgaard wrote:
> Theodore Heise wrote:
>
>
>>/dev/hda8 /var/spool/news news spool 20
>
>
> Thats is IMHO a awful lot of space for news. The average news message is
> only like 2KB and 20GB leaves room for more than 10.000.000 messages.

It would depend if you were subscribing to any of the binary newsgroups.

They's eat up that space pretty quickly to get any sort of decent
completion rate.

--
Billy

Theodore Heise <theo@heise.nu> wrote:
> My question has to do with /var. I have users who like to store mail in
> their inbox, so I'm planning quite a lot of space for /var (to accomodate
> /var/spool). My understanding is that /var and its subdirectories don't
> need to be available to the kernel at boot.

You are right about that the /var partition should be separated from the
/ partition. It is not needed during the initial boot, but at a later
stage after local partitions has been mounted some started processes will
use the /var directory like for putting pid-files in /var/run.

One good reason to separate /var from / is the fact that a lot of writing
happens to the /var directory structure. In the old days, before whe had
journaling file systems, writing data always meant a risk of getting a
corrupted file system if the power was lost. By separating the /var
partition from / we could protect / from getting corrupted. Then the
system would be able to boot and fix things using fsck which was on the /
partition.

regards Henrik
--
The address in the header is only to prevent spam. My real address is:
hc7(at)uthyres.com Examples of addresses which go to spammers:
root@variousus.net info@k-soft.se info@k-software.biz root@localhost

Theodore Heise wrote:

> Does this seem like a reasonable strategy?

Yes it's reasonable. In particular, you seem to have thought about it
and decided there are reasons to separate some parts of the system from
the rest, while not separating others.

On my systems, /usr is always kept separate, but that's my preference,
and also an agreed upon convention among my colleagues. Floyd Davidson
recommends that you separate /boot as well, and I'm sure he would give
what he feels are good reasons for that. I've never done that myself,
and agree with your understanding that it isn't needed (so long as the
root partition remains within the limits of what the BIOS is able to
access at boot time). Ask 10 experienced sysadmins, and you'll get 10
different answers, though there will be some common aspects to all 10
answers.

Thinking about it, and making the decisions based on the specific needs
of your own system(s). Is the most important part of this, though. It
doesn't matter nearly as much if you do things the way I would do them
or Floyd would do them, as it does whether what you implement will work
for you in the long term.

The partitioning scheme (both which partitions, and how large to make
them) that I use now is the result of many years' worth of observation
with both Linux and non-Linux systems, and more than a few false-starts.

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sylvain Robitaille syl@alcor.concordia.ca

Systems analyst Concordia University
Instructional & Information Technology Montreal, Quebec, Canada
----------------------------------------------------------------------

On Sat, 24 Sep 2005 12:16:58 -0800,
Floyd L. Davidson <floyd@apaflo.com> wrote:
> Theodore Heise <theo@heise.nu> wrote:

>>partition mount point use GB
>>--------- ----------- ---------- --
>>/dev/hda1 / system 6
>
> I would separate /usr from the root fs. I would also have
> /boot on a separate partition.
>
>>/dev/hda2 swap page swapping 1
>>/dev/hda3 /home user files 30
>>/dev/hda5 /var logs, mail 5
>>/dev/hda6 /tmp temp files 1
>
> No real need for this. Add the space to /var, and symlink
> /tmp and /usr/tmp to /var/tmp.

Thanks for the suggestions!


>>/dev/hda7 /usr/local extra pkgs 2
>
> Is that big enough?

I think so. I don't add a whole lot of packages, so far it's just
been SpamAssassin, UW imap, logwatch, ddclient, and leafnode.

--
Theodore (Ted) Heise <theo@heise.nu> Bloomington, IN, USA

On Sat, 24 Sep 2005 21:36:28 +0100,
Billy Watt <billy@benarty.co.uk> wrote:
> Thomas Overgaard wrote:
>> Theodore Heise wrote:
>>
>>>/dev/hda8 /var/spool/news news spool 20
>>
>> Thats is IMHO a awful lot of space for news. The average news message is
>> only like 2KB and 20GB leaves room for more than 10.000.000 messages.
>
> It would depend if you were subscribing to any of the binary
> newsgroups.
>
> They's eat up that space pretty quickly to get any sort of
> decent completion rate.

Well, I don't subscribe to any binaries, but as I mentioned in
another post would like to increase expiry times.

--
Theodore (Ted) Heise <theo@heise.nu> Bloomington, IN, USA

On Sun, 25 Sep 2005 00:20:28 +0200,
Henrik Carlqvist <Henrik.Carlqvist@deadspam.com> wrote:
> Theodore Heise <theo@heise.nu> wrote:
>> My question has to do with /var. I have users who like to store mail in
>> their inbox, so I'm planning quite a lot of space for /var (to accomodate
>> /var/spool). My understanding is that /var and its subdirectories don't
>> need to be available to the kernel at boot.
>
> You are right about that the /var partition should be separated from the
> / partition. It is not needed during the initial boot, but at a later
> stage after local partitions has been mounted some started processes will
> use the /var directory like for putting pid-files in /var/run.
>
> One good reason to separate /var from / is the fact that a lot of writing
> happens to the /var directory structure. In the old days, before whe had
> journaling file systems, writing data always meant a risk of getting a
> corrupted file system if the power was lost. By separating the /var
> partition from / we could protect / from getting corrupted. Then the
> system would be able to boot and fix things using fsck which was on the /
> partition.

Thanks Henrik, very helpful!

--
Theodore (Ted) Heise <theo@heise.nu> Bloomington, IN, USA