Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 12:28:49 +0900 From: Rob <spamrefuse@yahoo.com> To: freebsd-current <freebsd-current@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: 5.3-Beta7 diskless boot: it boots but has empty /var (on/dev/md1) !? Message-ID: <41733871.5040708@yahoo.com> In-Reply-To: <4172538A.9080906@yahoo.com> References: <4171D3AE.8010601@yahoo.com> <4171EACE.4020602@gamersimpact.com> <4172538A.9080906@yahoo.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Rob wrote:
> Ryan Sommers wrote:
>
>> Rob wrote:
>>
>>> However, on the diskless PC, /var is on a memory
>>> disk, but that directory is completely empty:
>>>
>>> disklessPC# ls -a /var
>>> . .. .snap
>>>
>>> disklessPC# mount
>>> 192.168.123.254:/ on / (nfs, read-only)
>>> devfs on /dev (devfs, local)
>>> /dev/md0 on /etc (ufs, local, soft-updates)
>>> procfs on /proc (procfs, local)
>>> /dev/md1 on /var (ufs, local, soft-updates)
>>> 192.168.123.254:/usr on /usr (nfs, read-only)
>>> 192.168.123.254:/home on /home (nfs)
>>> /dev/md2 on /tmp (ufs, local, soft-updates)
>>>
>>> This has serious consequences on the diskless PC.
>>> For example, sshd cannot start because /var/empty
>>> is not there. There is no information in /var/run,
>>> /var/log etc.
>>>
>>> Is something missing in the /etc/rc.d/initdiskless script,
>>> or have I forgotten something?
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Rob.
>>
>>
>>
>> The /var memory disk needs to be populated with a base structure. This
>> is handled in initdiskless by templates (see
>> /etc/rc.d/initdiskless:285). You can either have them as
>> subdirectories in your /conf/ or as dir.cpio.gz cpio'gzip archives
>> that are then extracted.
>
>
> Great! Thank you. This works very well.
>
> What I have done is putting only the directories in the var.cpio.gz,
> as follows:
> find /var -type d | cpio -o > /conf/base/var.cpio
> gzip /conf/base/var.cpio
>
> to regenerate the directory tree for /var on the diskless PC, assuming
> that individual files will be created as the system boots.
> The latter is indeed the case with files like
> /var/run/dmesg.boot
> /var/run/sshd.pid
> /var/run/syslog.pid
> /var/run/syslogd.sockets
> and so forth.
>
> However, /var/log/ is empty and remains empty !?!? Any idea why that is?
> I need to inspect files like /var/log/auth.log, /var/log/messages and
> so on. Why are these log files not generated?
Let me answer my own question:
The answer is in the man page of syslogd(8):
For security reasons, syslogd will not append to log files that do not
exist; therefore, they must be created manually before running syslogd.
The log files should be there with "chmod 600" owned by root.
Rob.
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?41733871.5040708>