From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Sep 23 19:19:50 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4CCA016A4CE; Thu, 23 Sep 2004 19:19:50 +0000 (GMT) Received: from electra.cse.Buffalo.EDU (electra.cse.Buffalo.EDU [128.205.32.2]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D0B2343D54; Thu, 23 Sep 2004 19:19:49 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from kensmith@cse.Buffalo.EDU) Received: from electra.cse.Buffalo.EDU (kensmith@localhost [127.0.0.1]) i8NJJmTH000469; Thu, 23 Sep 2004 15:19:48 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from kensmith@localhost) by electra.cse.Buffalo.EDU (8.12.10/8.12.9/Submit) id i8NJJm9W000468; Thu, 23 Sep 2004 15:19:48 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 15:19:48 -0400 From: Ken Smith To: Brooks Davis Message-ID: <20040923191947.GA102@electra.cse.Buffalo.EDU> References: <20040920211231.89904.qmail@web53808.mail.yahoo.com> <200409201753.38308.so14k@so14k.com> <414F9C6D.9020709@corp.grupos.com.br> <20040921041017.GA963@tomcat.kitchenlab.org> <127205680265.20040920222835@takeda.tk> <20040921154116.GB36705@tomcat.kitchenlab.org> <12247499375.20040921100534@takeda.tk> <20040923155419.GB53845@tomcat.kitchenlab.org> <56421822718.20040923103059@takeda.tk> <20040923184037.GE25699@odin.ac.hmc.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20040923184037.GE25699@odin.ac.hmc.edu> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i cc: "Bruce A. Mah" cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: upgrade questions 4.10 -> 5-stable X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 19:19:50 -0000 On Thu, Sep 23, 2004 at 11:40:37AM -0700, Brooks Davis wrote: > By design /var contains things that change frequently during system > operation, not things that are unimportant. Thing in /var/run and > /var/tmp are required to be things you can lose, but many of the rest of > the directories are of crucial importance. [ From an ancient dinosaur ... ] I believe the original motivation for /var came from the days when big servers were where most stuff was stored, including the bulk of the system files (some machines actually ran with no disks at all, some ran with tiny drives with just enough space for a minimal root filesystem plus swap space). The design goal was to set things up so /usr could be shared among lots of machines, and except for the machine that actually had it on the local drive all machines sharing it would mount it read-only. /var was where stuff that could not be shared and/or needed to be written to went. So you see spool files (mail, printer, etc.) go there, log files go there, cron job definitions go there, etc. -- Ken Smith - From there to here, from here to | kensmith@cse.buffalo.edu there, funny things are everywhere. | - Theodore Geisel |