From owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Aug 31 07:11:14 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 039771065670 for ; Wed, 31 Aug 2011 07:11:14 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from perryh@pluto.rain.com) Received: from agora.rdrop.com (agora.rdrop.com [IPv6:2607:f678:1010::34]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BED6F8FC16 for ; Wed, 31 Aug 2011 07:11:13 +0000 (UTC) Received: from agora.rdrop.com (66@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by agora.rdrop.com (8.13.1/8.12.7) with ESMTP id p7V7BBtu065849 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NOT); Wed, 31 Aug 2011 00:11:11 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from perryh@pluto.rain.com) Received: (from uucp@localhost) by agora.rdrop.com (8.13.1/8.12.9/Submit) with UUCP id p7V7BA3Q065848; Wed, 31 Aug 2011 00:11:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fbsd81 ([192.168.200.81]) by pluto.rain.com (4.1/SMI-4.1-pluto-M2060407) id AA23151; Wed, 31 Aug 11 00:08:36 PDT Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2011 07:08:31 -0700 From: perryh@pluto.rain.com To: peterjeremy@acm.org Message-Id: <4e5e405f.59yZRGyROtIPwuBg%perryh@pluto.rain.com> References: <20110831060713.GB37259@server.vk2pj.dyndns.org> In-Reply-To: <20110831060713.GB37259@server.vk2pj.dyndns.org> User-Agent: nail 11.25 7/29/05 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Regularly updated files in /etc X-BeenThere: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussion related to FreeBSD architecture List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2011 07:11:14 -0000 Peter Jeremy wrote: > - Moving dumpdates out of root just means a different FS would > need te be writable during dumps. Said other FS would also need to be _mounted_ during all dumps that either are incremental or specify -u; and it would ordinarily _not_ be mounted if one were following the classical advice to have the system in single-user mode (with root remounted read/write to enable writing to dumpdates) while running dump(8). Granted that's no longer supposed to be necessary if using -L, but not everyone trusts UFS snapshots. Since anyone who wants to move dumpdates elsewhere can easily enough add -D to their dump(8) scripts, and/or put a symlink to the new location in /etc, I don't know that there's a lot of upside to changing its default location. > resolv.conf is more problematic: > - Potentially, it could be needed to NFS mount /var, though this > seems unlikely in practice. > - Since there are no standard APIs for updating resolv.conf, there > are likely to be lots of home-grown scripts that know where it is. I would be concerned about the first item (chicken-egg problem). There would at least need to be an entry in UPDATING. The last is easy enough to fix by dropping a symlink to the new location into /etc, but as with dumpdates there is nothing stopping someone who wants a read-only root FS -- and who doesn't need an NFS-mounted /var -- from doing it on their own.