From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Nov 5 04:46:35 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 84F7216A4CE for ; Fri, 5 Nov 2004 04:46:35 +0000 (GMT) Received: from harmony.village.org (rover.village.org [168.103.84.182]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2621743D31 for ; Fri, 5 Nov 2004 04:46:35 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from imp@bsdimp.com) Received: from localhost (harmony.village.org [10.0.0.6]) by harmony.village.org (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id iA54jPAZ065710; Thu, 4 Nov 2004 21:45:25 -0700 (MST) (envelope-from imp@bsdimp.com) Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2004 21:45:38 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <20041104.214538.34123012.imp@bsdimp.com> To: cswiger@mac.com From: "M. Warner Losh" In-Reply-To: <4188D543.3020501@mac.com> References: <4188D543.3020501@mac.com> X-Mailer: Mew version 3.3 on Emacs 21.3 / Mule 5.0 (SAKAKI) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: USB Key Disk Boot X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 05 Nov 2004 04:46:35 -0000 In message: <4188D543.3020501@mac.com> Chuck Swiger writes: : joe mcguckin wrote: : [ ...top-posting recovered... ] : > Most USB keys don't have a rw/ro switch. Is there a kernel flag you can set : > to tell FreeBSD that boot device is flash and that writes should be kept to : > a minimum? : : Look at /etc/fstab, and consider the "ro" & "noatime" options. You don't need both. Just one or the other. : > Can swap space be completely done away with? : : Certainly. It would be a very good idea to configure the system with more : than enough physical RAM, and to take some care selecting the software being : run on the system. : : [ If you stick to small, simple C programs like natd, dhcpd, etc, you should : be fine. Try to avoid complex systems and scripting languages like Perl-- for : example, trying to do SMTP + SpamAssassin + amavis + antivirus on a Compact : Flash-based host would be a bad idea. ] You can also set sysctl vm.swap_enabled to 0. This prevents one warning. Failure to do so results in no bad effects if you have no swap partition apart from the warning the first time text working sets need to be trimmed. Warner