Date: Sat, 15 Nov 1997 16:12:37 -0600 (CST) From: Steve Price <sprice@hiwaay.net> To: Evan Champion <evanc@synapse.net> Cc: freebsd-bugs@hub.freebsd.org Subject: Re: misc/5054: /tmp not nuked on reboot Message-ID: <Pine.OSF.3.96.971115150956.6026E-100000@fly.HiWAAY.net> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.971115155932.9762J-100000@cello.synapse.net>
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On Sat, 15 Nov 1997, Evan Champion wrote: # That's what /var/tmp is supposed to be for. The basis behind /tmp and # /var/tmp is that /tmp is for very transient stuff that you don't care if # it is lost during a reboot or by an auto-cleaner. This is why /tmp is # often put on a tmpfs. # # /var/tmp is for stuff that is meant to be kept around, but is still # temporary in nature. For example, a lot of programs core dump to # /var/tmp. /var/tmp is never auto-cleaned nor purged on reboot. # # That is also why it is a very bad idea to symlink /tmp to /var/tmp. # Instead, make /tmp a separate filesystem (tmpfs or otherwise), or symlink # it to /usr/tmp. # # That's the way it's been with BSD for as long as I remember. It was like # that at least with SunOS 4 if not earlier, and certainly has always been # the case on BSD/OS. # I'm sure you have a very good reason for cleaning /tmp on reboot and I know of the legacy behind it and /var/tmp. I don't want to start a religious war or the like, I am only trying to explain why it may have been changed to behave the way it does now. IMHO, cleaning /tmp or any files for that matter without me, the system administrator, having explicitly told it to do so smells of anarchy. I wished I had the power to reverse such things as this, but this seems to be a policy decision that the core group has made and the best place to plead your case is with them. I'm pretty sure that at least Jordan is following this thread and will chime in at any moment and clue both of us in as to why this functionality was removed. :) Please don't take this the wrong way. I tried to offer you an alternative solution that would accomplish what you wanted. If my solution does not suit your needs, feel free to develop your own or revert back to the legacy way of doing things. As for getting this change reverted in FreeBSD, we will have to wait and see what some of the others have to say. BTW, I remember that somewhere along 2.1.5 (at least) this was the norm with FreeBSD as well (to clean /tmp), but somewhere it lost its luster and was removed. Again, I don't know why it was done, only that it was. Just my opinion, Steve # Evan # #
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