From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Dec 4 22:07:06 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C19838F4 for ; Tue, 4 Dec 2012 22:07:06 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ateve@sohara.org) Received: from uk1rly2283.eechost.net (relay01a.mail.uk1.eechost.net [217.69.40.75]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7D5858FC13 for ; Tue, 4 Dec 2012 22:07:06 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [31.186.37.179] (helo=smtp.marelmo.com) by uk1rly2283.eechost.net with esmtpa (Exim 4.72) (envelope-from ) id 1Tg0eZ-00058r-GN for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Tue, 04 Dec 2012 22:07:47 +0000 Received: from [192.168.63.1] (helo=steve.marelmo.com) by smtp.marelmo.com with smtp (Exim 4.80.1 (FreeBSD)) (envelope-from ) id 1Tg0dq-000B5e-VR for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Tue, 04 Dec 2012 22:07:03 +0000 Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2012 22:07:01 +0000 From: Steve O'Hara-Smith To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: root filesystem and soft-update Message-Id: <20121204220701.3aa322b9507fb55c7b391af9@sohara.org> In-Reply-To: References: X-Mailer: Sylpheed 3.2.0 (GTK+ 2.24.6; amd64-portbld-freebsd9.0) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Auth-Info: 15567@permanet.ie (plain) X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2012 22:07:06 -0000 On Tue, 4 Dec 2012 16:50:42 -0500 Rick Miller wrote: > Hi all, > > I remember one time seeing a site that explained why soft-updates was > not enabled for the root filesystem. I tried looking for it earlier, > but failed to locate it. Is there someone who knows where it is? No idea about where it is, but I can recall the reasons. The root filesystem is often quite small and the delay in space freed by deletions could cause the filesystem to fill up during an update resulting in a failed update and a partially hosed root filesystem (not inconsistent, just incomplete - but if it's /bin/sh that's gone it could be tricky recovering). The other reason is that softupdates is about optimising write performace, and the root filesystem shouldn't be getting many writes in normal use so softupdates is of no benefit. -- Steve O'Hara-Smith