From owner-freebsd-bugs  Mon May 19 11:50:56 1997
Return-Path: <owner-bugs>
Received: (from root@localhost)
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id LAA10722
          for bugs-outgoing; Mon, 19 May 1997 11:50:56 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from dg-rtp.dg.com (dg-rtp.rtp.dg.com [128.222.1.2])
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id LAA10716
          for <freebsd-bugs@hub.freebsd.org>; Mon, 19 May 1997 11:50:54 -0700 (PDT)
Received: by dg-rtp.dg.com (5.4R3.10/dg-rtp-v02)
	id AA25956; Mon, 19 May 1997 14:50:21 -0400
Received: from ponds by dg-rtp.dg.com.rtp.dg.com; Mon, 19 May 1997 14:50 EDT
Received: from lakes.water.net (lakes [10.0.0.3]) by ponds.water.net (8.8.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id NAA04931; Mon, 19 May 1997 13:18:23 -0400 (EDT)
Received: (from rivers@localhost) by lakes.water.net (8.8.5/8.6.9) id NAA23220; Mon, 19 May 1997 13:25:34 -0400 (EDT)
Date: Mon, 19 May 1997 13:25:34 -0400 (EDT)
From: Thomas David Rivers <ponds!rivers@dg-rtp.dg.com>
Message-Id: <199705191725.NAA23220@lakes.water.net>
To: ponds!zibbi.mikom.csir.co.za!jhay, ponds!time.cdrom.com!jkh
Subject: Re: conf/3605: New /etc/rc not clearing /tmp
Cc: ponds!hub.freebsd.org!freebsd-bugs, ponds!uriah.heep.sax.de!j
Content-Type: text
Sender: owner-bugs@FreeBSD.ORG
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk

> 
> > Semi on the same topic. What about making daily read rc.conf or something
> > and then make the regular cleaning of /tmp configurable. That way daily
> > also needn't be edited locally.
> 
> That's an interesting idea - I assume we'd do the same for weekly and
> monthly?  Any objections?
> 
> 					Jordan
> 

 Generally, it's not a good idea to clean /tmp while a machine is
"up".

 Consider the scenario:

  1) long-running-process writes a file to /tmp, to be read some time later.
     (closes the file, but "remembers" it's there.)

  2) /etc/daily comes along, wipes out the file.

  3) long-running-process goes back to read file.  Oops - it's gone 
     missing.


Of course, the definition of long-running-process just has to be a little
more than the time to close and unlink a file; reopening it later.

 Where I work, we've had to hack many vendor's equivalent of /etc/daily
to not clean out /tmp.


 Now, if you make it configurable - I'd say the default configuration
is never... 

	- Dave Rivers -