Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 17:47:09 -0400 From: "Maxim Khitrov" <mkhitrov@gmail.com> To: "Brad Waite" <freebsd@wcubed.net> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: /var or /usr for data? Message-ID: <26ddd1750708221447o14158e77u45c7727a17ba084@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <56712.67.176.75.179.1187816225.squirrel@webmail.wcubed.net> References: <56712.67.176.75.179.1187816225.squirrel@webmail.wcubed.net>
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On 8/22/07, Brad Waite <freebsd@wcubed.net> 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 put all the server-related data such as databases, mail, websites, subversion/mercurial repositories under /srv. It's part of the FHS, but I don't think many people use it. You should not be using /usr for this. I think of /usr as the place where software gets installed to (and from), but there shouldn't be your own data under it with the exception of configuration files. If I had to use something other than /srv I would go for /var, but in my opinion that's also messy. Especially so if you have /var/tmp on the same partition. As far as partition sizes go, I tend to follow a rather simple model. I give 1GB to /, even though that's usually an overkill, 2xRAM for swap, 1-4GB for /var depending on what I plan to use the machine for, 5-20GB for /usr (20 is mostly for workstations where you plan to run an X server with many other apps), and the rest either for /srv or /home. For a server I use /srv, for a workstation I use /home. - Max
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