From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Oct 18 03:28:50 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2C22D16A4CE for ; Mon, 18 Oct 2004 03:28:50 +0000 (GMT) Received: from auk1.snu.ac.kr (auk1.snu.ac.kr [147.46.100.31]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CC73043D1F for ; Mon, 18 Oct 2004 03:28:49 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from spamrefuse@yahoo.com) Received: from [147.46.44.181] (spamrefuse@yahoo.com) by auk1.snu.ac.kr (Terrace Internet Messaging Server) with ESMTP id 2004101812:27:23:557052.15513.2963467184 for ; Mon, 18 Oct 2004 12:27:23 +0900 (KST) Message-ID: <41733871.5040708@yahoo.com> Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 12:28:49 +0900 From: Rob User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20041017 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-current References: <4171D3AE.8010601@yahoo.com> <4171EACE.4020602@gamersimpact.com> <4172538A.9080906@yahoo.com> In-Reply-To: <4172538A.9080906@yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-TERRACE-SPAMMARK: NO (SR:1.91) (by Terrace) Subject: Re: 5.3-Beta7 diskless boot: it boots but has empty /var (on/dev/md1) !? X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 03:28:50 -0000 Rob wrote: > Ryan Sommers wrote: > >> Rob wrote: >> >>> However, on the diskless PC, /var is on a memory >>> disk, but that directory is completely empty: >>> >>> disklessPC# ls -a /var >>> . .. .snap >>> >>> disklessPC# mount >>> 192.168.123.254:/ on / (nfs, read-only) >>> devfs on /dev (devfs, local) >>> /dev/md0 on /etc (ufs, local, soft-updates) >>> procfs on /proc (procfs, local) >>> /dev/md1 on /var (ufs, local, soft-updates) >>> 192.168.123.254:/usr on /usr (nfs, read-only) >>> 192.168.123.254:/home on /home (nfs) >>> /dev/md2 on /tmp (ufs, local, soft-updates) >>> >>> This has serious consequences on the diskless PC. >>> For example, sshd cannot start because /var/empty >>> is not there. There is no information in /var/run, >>> /var/log etc. >>> >>> Is something missing in the /etc/rc.d/initdiskless script, >>> or have I forgotten something? >>> >>> Thanks, >>> Rob. >> >> >> >> The /var memory disk needs to be populated with a base structure. This >> is handled in initdiskless by templates (see >> /etc/rc.d/initdiskless:285). You can either have them as >> subdirectories in your /conf/ or as dir.cpio.gz cpio'gzip archives >> that are then extracted. > > > Great! Thank you. This works very well. > > What I have done is putting only the directories in the var.cpio.gz, > as follows: > find /var -type d | cpio -o > /conf/base/var.cpio > gzip /conf/base/var.cpio > > to regenerate the directory tree for /var on the diskless PC, assuming > that individual files will be created as the system boots. > The latter is indeed the case with files like > /var/run/dmesg.boot > /var/run/sshd.pid > /var/run/syslog.pid > /var/run/syslogd.sockets > and so forth. > > However, /var/log/ is empty and remains empty !?!? Any idea why that is? > I need to inspect files like /var/log/auth.log, /var/log/messages and > so on. Why are these log files not generated? Let me answer my own question: The answer is in the man page of syslogd(8): For security reasons, syslogd will not append to log files that do not exist; therefore, they must be created manually before running syslogd. The log files should be there with "chmod 600" owned by root. Rob.