Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 09:24:16 -1000 From: Clifton Royston <cliftonr@tikitechnologies.com> To: freebsd.org@donnacha.com Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: I need further HDD advice before submitting order. Message-ID: <20050511192415.GC18096@tikitechnologies.com> In-Reply-To: <42822285.9050402@donnacha.com> References: <42822285.9050402@donnacha.com>
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On Wed, May 11, 2005 at 04:19:33PM +0100, freebsd.org@donnacha.com wrote:
> Hi again,
>
> I posted a question here last week, asking for advice on how I should
> ask my datacenter to divide up the HDDs in my new server. Thank you to
> everyone who responded.
>
> I have tried to understand all the advice given and, since then, have
> tried to get myself up to speed by reading the relevant sections in The
> Complete FreeBSD, FreeBSD Unleashed, Absolute BSD and Teach Yourself
> FreeBSD in 24 Hours (it didn't).
>
> I understand a little more than I did but am still unsure as to how I
> should divide the HDDs and would very much appreciate reactions to my
> current proposal.
>
> ----------
>
> Server purpose: Initially just forums, later sundry other Web apps i.e.
> ecommerce, ticket bookings etc. Will possibly become a heavy-duty email
> server at some stage.
>
> 2GB RAM
>
> 80GB HDD IDE:
> / = 1GB
> /usr = 15GB
> /local = 15GB
> Swap = 4GB
> Unallocated = 40GB
>
> 200GB HDD IDE:
>
> /tmp = 2GB (is that enough?)
> /home = 28GB
> /var = 100GB (will inclube the forum databases etc)
> Unallocated = 70GB
Two tips I always do on *BSD systems nowadays:
1) Create and newfs an /altroot partition on the boot drive, of equal
size to /, and occasionally sync it from / using dump/restore or rsync.
The rest of the time leave it mounted ro. If / gets damaged in a
failed upgrade or just via bad luck, you're nearly assured of being
able to boot off of /altroot to repair things. It's the kind of thing
you might use only once in several years but which saves you a ton of
grief then. (Mind you, in your remote data center situation, you would
need to talk a technician on the console through the steps to boot from
it; make sure you know how to do that.)
2) Take the extra space that you're marking as "unallocated", create
and newfs the partitions as /data (or sometimes /data, /data2,
/data3...), and go ahead and mount it. Then when you run into some
application that needs to use it, you can either symlink it into the
main filesystem or configure the application to go directly there. For
example, "ln -s /data /var/db/mysql" or "CVSROOT=/data/cvs"
Otherwise what you're proposing looks good at first glance.
-- Clifton
--
Clifton Royston -- cliftonr@tikitechnologies.com
Tiki Technologies Lead Programmer/Software Architect
"I'm gonna tell my son to grow up pretty as the grass is green
And whip-smart as the English Channel's wide..."
-- 'Whip-Smart', Liz Phair
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