From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Sep 5 04:06:41 2014 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [8.8.178.115]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 08CFD938 for ; Fri, 5 Sep 2014 04:06:41 +0000 (UTC) Received: from relay2.tomsk.ru (mail.sibptus.tomsk.ru [212.73.124.5]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6719F1325 for ; Fri, 5 Sep 2014 04:06:39 +0000 (UTC) X-Virus-Scanned: by clamd daemon 0.98.1 for FreeBSD at relay2.tomsk.ru Received: from admin.sibptus.tomsk.ru (account sudakov@sibptus.tomsk.ru [212.73.125.240] verified) by relay2.tomsk.ru (CommuniGate Pro SMTP 5.1.16) with ESMTPSA id 36601885; Fri, 05 Sep 2014 11:06:38 +0700 Received: from admin.sibptus.tomsk.ru (sudakov@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by admin.sibptus.tomsk.ru (8.14.9/8.14.7) with ESMTP id s8546bGR054981; Fri, 5 Sep 2014 11:06:37 +0700 (NOVT) (envelope-from vas@mpeks.tomsk.su) Received: (from sudakov@localhost) by admin.sibptus.tomsk.ru (8.14.9/8.14.7/Submit) id s8546bhl054980; Fri, 5 Sep 2014 11:06:37 +0700 (NOVT) (envelope-from vas@mpeks.tomsk.su) X-Authentication-Warning: admin.sibptus.tomsk.ru: sudakov set sender to vas@mpeks.tomsk.su using -f Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2014 11:06:37 +0700 From: Victor Sudakov To: Adam Vande More Subject: Re: /etc on a separate filesystem ? Message-ID: <20140905040637.GB54562@admin.sibptus.tomsk.ru> References: <20140904150739.GA42707@admin.sibptus.tomsk.ru> <20140904153042.GA42968@admin.sibptus.tomsk.ru> <448ulz5ps3.fsf@be-well.ilk.org> <20140905030813.GA52942@admin.sibptus.tomsk.ru> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: Organization: AO "Svyaztransneft", SibPTUS X-PGP-Key: http://www.dreamwidth.org/pubkey?user=victor_sudakov X-PGP-Fingerprint: 10E3 1171 1273 E007 C2E9 3532 0DA4 F259 9B5E C634 User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.23 (2014-03-12) Cc: FreeBSD Questions X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.18-1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 04:06:41 -0000 Adam Vande More wrote: > > > > > > > > > Michael Sierchio wrote: > > > > >> > Is it possible to keep /etc on a separate filesystem? > > > > >> No. /etc/fstab, among other things > > > > > > > > > > That's why I am asking. > > > > > > > > It kind of depends on *why* you're asking. > > > > > > > > > Sounds an awful lot like an XY problem to me. > > > > That's fair. Let me explain my purpose. I have created a LiveUSB for > > testing and hardware diagnostics with dualboot: FreeBSD amd64 and > > i386. I was looking for a way for them to share a common /etc. > > > > If there is no easy way, I can rsync changes of /etc from one system > > to another on shutdown, or find something else. > > > That is a better description. If this tool is going to be confined to a > network you have control over, doing a diskless mount on /etc may be > sufficient. Otherwise unison does FS synchronization, What FS synchronization? Remember, I don't need to synchronize the whole root fs, just /etc. > or you could take a > more targeted approach with rcs(1). Whatever means can be used to synchronize two copies of /etc (certainly more than one), they are still two copies which can fall out of sync eventually. One common copy would be a KISS solution. Who exactly reads /etc/fstab? The kernel, I suppose, before it even looks for init? Can the kernel be modified to look for it somewhere else, like in /boot/fstab ? Or could I just redefine vfs.root.mountfrom to a small partition with a minimum set of files, and then have init look for /etc/rc in the real /etc ? -- Victor Sudakov, VAS4-RIPE, VAS47-RIPN sip:sudakov@sibptus.tomsk.ru