From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Aug 24 02:27:37 2007 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 44F0016A417 for ; Fri, 24 Aug 2007 02:27:37 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from illoai@gmail.com) Received: from fk-out-0910.google.com (fk-out-0910.google.com [209.85.128.185]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C600D13C45D for ; Fri, 24 Aug 2007 02:27:36 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from illoai@gmail.com) Received: by fk-out-0910.google.com with SMTP id b27so676469fka for ; Thu, 23 Aug 2007 19:27:35 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=FVQKsBgpXHzw8jmPnVJJi5g/1rWaLpOFwWXFrOblMBlNpg5dBetalD4Du+yfQKwlSqoJvrmj4gk3RSyNXWFT1/jJ31W0WWRoVI2p5hb218WCgZwj0YbF0UZqVD8kHG94ulCtCNDbjaID/VdY55KyUSxUp0/TifZfMe3eejTOf7I= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=V3FbmvgiisXaDgu74MwFdneUxQuX66ws3elmU40zQOoj8PGUlBGfNd20dUrKf0kz0Q3/iZyQ0VmWeAzUk8muuOL1tw8cBHbS01dU90za3k87noVpD52O4YsjvR/2/u3UFnKG4EN2vazjU7O5Ib/G2QTmgZ1WRS09Ryqz0HlLA3o= Received: by 10.82.108.9 with SMTP id g9mr2291394buc.1187922454967; Thu, 23 Aug 2007 19:27:34 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.82.185.5 with HTTP; Thu, 23 Aug 2007 19:27:34 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2007 21:27:34 -0500 From: "illoai@gmail.com" To: "Andrew Gould" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <56712.67.176.75.179.1187816225.squirrel@webmail.wcubed.net> Cc: Brad Waite , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: /var or /usr for data? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 02:27:37 -0000 On 22/08/07, Andrew Gould wrote: > On 8/22/07, Brad Waite 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 usually move the data directories (/usr/home, /usr/local/pgsql, > /var/db/mysql, etc) to a separate, hard drive mounted at /data and create > symbolic links back at the default locations. If you run out of space, you > can move the data to a larger hard drive and either adjust the links or have > the new drive mount at /data (or wherever you choose). I tend to support the notion of a filesystem seperate from /usr or /var, as if the program goes wild for tequila you won't be stuffing up a filesystem that you need to run the operating system. Quotas, and other such notions might suffice, but why bother on an essentially single- purpose system? -- --