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Date:      Wed, 28 Jan 1998 06:12:52 -0800
From:      Don Lewis <Don.Lewis@tsc.tdk.com>
To:        "Jeffrey J. Mountin" <mountin.man@mixcom.com>, andrew@pubnix.net, lamaster@george.arc.nasa.gov
Cc:        freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Sendmail - low on space
Message-ID:  <199801281412.GAA06432@salsa.gv.tsc.tdk.com>
In-Reply-To: "Jeffrey J. Mountin" <mountin.man@mixcom.com> "Re: Sendmail - low on space" (Jan 27,  4:19pm)

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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



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