From owner-freebsd-amd64@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Dec 11 03:55:30 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7AF8616A4CE for ; Thu, 11 Dec 2003 03:55:30 -0800 (PST) Received: from lurza.secnetix.de (lurza.secnetix.de [195.143.231.20]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 57D7D43D09 for ; Thu, 11 Dec 2003 03:55:28 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from olli@lurza.secnetix.de) Received: from lurza.secnetix.de (kvenmb@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by lurza.secnetix.de (8.12.9p2/8.12.9) with ESMTP id hBBBtQb0093773 for ; Thu, 11 Dec 2003 12:55:26 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from oliver.fromme@secnetix.de) Received: (from olli@localhost) by lurza.secnetix.de (8.12.9p2/8.12.9/Submit) id hBBBtQs2093772; Thu, 11 Dec 2003 12:55:26 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from olli) Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2003 12:55:26 +0100 (CET) Message-Id: <200312111155.hBBBtQs2093772@lurza.secnetix.de> From: Oliver Fromme To: freebsd-amd64@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <3FD7F786.7010208@texoma.net> X-Newsgroups: list.freebsd-amd64 User-Agent: tin/1.5.4-20000523 ("1959") (UNIX) (FreeBSD/4.9-RELEASE (i386)) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Subject: Re: Partitions X-BeenThere: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list Reply-To: freebsd-amd64@FreeBSD.ORG List-Id: Porting FreeBSD to the AMD64 platform List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2003 11:55:30 -0000 Jimmie Houchin wrote: > This isn't really a specifically amd64 question but here goes. My answer isn't amd64 specific either. :-) > Do I really need a 4gb swap partition/slice? > I have 4gb ram. In that case you should have at least a little more than 4 Gbyte swap, because otherwise crashdumps won't work. If the kernel panics, an image of the RAM is written to the swap partition (by default) for debugging. That only works if the swap partition is at least as big as the RAM (actually a little more, because there's some overhead). >From your partition list it seems that you have a 250 Gb disk. In that case I think you can spend a few gigs for the swap. :-) Even if you don't expect the machine to swap/page during normal use, it's generally not a bad idea to have plenty of swap space, so there is sufficient room in case that something runs havok. If your run out of memory (RAM + swap), then you're in serious trouble, because the kernel starts killing processes randomly. (Well, actually not really randomly, but it has been my experience that it tends to kill the "wrong" processes. YMMV.) > This is my current partition structure. > > / 256mb > /swap 4gb > /usr 8gb > /home 220gb (the rest) > > the original label suggestion was: > > / 256mb > /swap 4gb > /var 256mb > /tmp 256mb > /usr 228gb (the rest) I'd recommend keeping /var seperate. Having it on the root partition is not a good idea. First, 256 Mbyte is probably too small for the root partition plus /var. Seconds, there is usually quite some write activity on /var (log files, PID files, spool files, editor backups, compiler temporary files etc.), while on the root partition there's usually near zero write activity. Putting them into separate partitions will improve performance and robustness. That's even more true on a server. For /tmp it might be beneficial to put it onto a memory file system (disk-backed vnode) instead of a physical partition on disk, especially with 4 Gbyte of RAM. > Is 8gb enough for /usr for a server? Depends on what kind of server it's going to be. :-) > It will have X and dev tools and server apps. 8 Gbyte is plenty for X and dev tools. As far as the server apps are concerned, it depends. Is it a web server, a database server, news, proxy, shell server, or whatever ... Regards Oliver -- Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH & Co KG, Oettingenstr. 2, 80538 München Any opinions expressed in this message may be personal to the author and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of secnetix in any way. "C++ is over-complicated nonsense. And Bjorn Shoestrap's book a danger to public health. I tried reading it once, I was in recovery for months." -- Cliff Sarginson