From owner-freebsd-isp Wed Jan 28 06:13:36 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id GAA05369 for freebsd-isp-outgoing; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 06:13:36 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from gatekeeper.tsc.tdk.com (root@gatekeeper.tsc.tdk.com [207.113.159.21]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id GAA05363 for ; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 06:13:32 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from gdonl@tsc.tdk.com) Received: from sunrise.gv.tsc.tdk.com (root@sunrise.gv.tsc.tdk.com [192.168.241.191]) by gatekeeper.tsc.tdk.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id GAA17817; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 06:12:55 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from gdonl@tsc.tdk.com) Received: from salsa.gv.tsc.tdk.com (salsa.gv.tsc.tdk.com [192.168.241.194]) by sunrise.gv.tsc.tdk.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id GAA12843; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 06:12:54 -0800 (PST) Received: (from gdonl@localhost) by salsa.gv.tsc.tdk.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id GAA06432; Wed, 28 Jan 1998 06:12:52 -0800 (PST) From: Don Lewis Message-Id: <199801281412.GAA06432@salsa.gv.tsc.tdk.com> Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 06:12:52 -0800 In-Reply-To: "Jeffrey J. Mountin" "Re: Sendmail - low on space" (Jan 27, 4:19pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.6 alpha(3) 7/19/95) To: "Jeffrey J. Mountin" , andrew@pubnix.net, lamaster@george.arc.nasa.gov Subject: Re: Sendmail - low on space Cc: freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Sender: owner-freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Jan 27, 4:19pm, "Jeffrey J. Mountin" wrote: } Subject: Re: Sendmail - low on space } I forget the defaults, but do recall that as packages were added to a } system, the wasted space having separate /var and /usr partitions was an } issue and forced me to start over fresh. :/ This is still a problem if you make a combined usr+var partition too small. When you add all those packages, you'll end up without enough space for /var. I generally figure out how much space to dedicate to /usr upfront (better planning tools would be helpful) and make a guess based on experience for /var. If /var turns out to be too small, it's pretty painless to move it to a bigger partition or disk since I don't have to touch the stuff in /usr. Doing admin work is a lot more pleasant if /usr is online. For safety reasons, I like to mount publically writable partitions with the nosuid/noexec and nodev options. This isn't possible if you combine /usr and /var. /dev/sd0s1g /usr ufs rw,nodev 1 1 /dev/sd0s1e /var ufs rw,noexec,nodev 1 1 In some environments, it may even be possible to mount /usr read-only for additional protection. With separate partitions, reboots will often be faster because fsck won't need to touch /usr, which has lots of files. It will only need to check the more active /var partition which usually has a much smaller number of files. If you have more than one machine, using separate partitions gives you the option of sharing /usr over NFS. The stuff in /var isn't shareable. If you want to combine partitions, I'd recommend combining / and /usr, since they are both relatively static, and they are the only partitions which normally can't be mounted nosuid. The only downside is that it makes growing /usr less convenient. --- Truck