From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Oct 10 22:00:28 2009 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 70E0B106566B for ; Sat, 10 Oct 2009 22:00:28 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rwmaillists@googlemail.com) Received: from mail-ew0-f218.google.com (mail-ew0-f218.google.com [209.85.219.218]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AD4528FC08 for ; Sat, 10 Oct 2009 22:00:26 +0000 (UTC) Received: by ewy18 with SMTP id 18so1957480ewy.43 for ; Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:00:25 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=googlemail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:date:from:to:subject :message-id:in-reply-to:references:x-mailer:mime-version :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=815aIUKbbJwKYl5+ctIjtnADs8d46qhD9r+WuG+opN4=; b=Ae7tzEuVn/Ec1Wha81X10nt2kt/rqxpvYt6l7xOU6S/O9EG5a6kFUDbVWQCUVrMqNC 6z6mtljt8T1qQ9lnwPbYwCNI5/nV92jF3s4Fous1nrkpaiSrNi14wLHFtXtap1e6mnW+ 7UD+5nH3D7zVd/nfWac5x+AXPxGXe7VltsAjA= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=googlemail.com; s=gamma; h=date:from:to:subject:message-id:in-reply-to:references:x-mailer :mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=hut6uDXq7Q/1ZF5hoU2nVJ5saAUXi/Smm73AKd1ldnGCha3TiyRruMM6/xvEBaBdHH hSv4C0zpWlBZVaed2rtxk5KPAP4PPmbdQZniOu67Pi808dziAydRaL5OU2A03+CF+XNV kApUxfqNXO1q/fXBIHaJWLwbP0P5N/5Jcqj7k= Received: by 10.211.161.22 with SMTP id n22mr2074640ebo.83.1255212025628; Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:00:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gumby.homeunix.com (bb-87-81-140-128.ukonline.co.uk [87.81.140.128]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id 10sm669443eyd.38.2009.10.10.15.00.22 (version=SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:00:24 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sat, 10 Oct 2009 23:00:18 +0100 From: RW To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20091010230018.435dc8f2@gumby.homeunix.com> In-Reply-To: <20091010172731.GB4669@guilt.hydra> References: <200910091528.n99FS90I025341@lurza.secnetix.de> <20091009221522.2fbcd123@gumby.homeunix.com> <20091010172731.GB4669@guilt.hydra> X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.7.2 (GTK+ 2.16.6; i386-portbld-freebsd7.2) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: / almost out of space just after installation 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: Sat, 10 Oct 2009 22:00:28 -0000 On Sat, 10 Oct 2009 11:27:31 -0600 Chad Perrin wrote: > On Fri, Oct 09, 2009 at 10:15:22PM +0100, RW wrote: > > On Fri, 9 Oct 2009 17:28:09 +0200 (CEST) > > Oliver Fromme wrote: > > > Depending on the size of installed RAM, /tmp could also > > > be a memory disk by default. > > > > I don't see why it should depend on the amount of RAM, since it > > would normally be swap-backed. > > It should depend on the amount of RAM because putting /tmp in memory > takes away from the RAM available to the rest of the system. If your > system typically runs processes that consume a lot of RAM (like > Firefox, ha ha), your system could bog down a lot during typical use > if you use a RAM disk for /tmp without considering how much RAM you > have and need to use. By default, I think, /tmp should be on the > hard drive -- perhaps with an option when partitioning to set it up > to use RAM instead of physical storage. But it's not really a true RAM disk unless you use specify a malloc backed md device - which you should never do because it keeps the /tmp data in RAM unconditionally. tmpfs and swap-backed md devices normally used for /tmp are similar to conventional partitions in that they are disk-based storage cached in RAM. The difference is that because swap is ephemeral there's no need to commit updates to the backing store except for memory management reasons. Most people's /tmp requirements are pretty modest compared to modern swap and RAM sizes, but my /tmp device is ~3 times RAM size and it doesn't seem to create problems when I fill it.