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Date:      Thu, 13 Mar 1997 00:53:11 -0800 (PST)
From:      Doug White <dwhite@gdi.uoregon.edu>
To:        Dan Wolfe <dwolfe@zyga.com>
Cc:        "'questions@freebsd.org'" <questions@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: Creating a directory link from one partition to another
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSI.3.94.970313003219.1205F-100000@localhost>
In-Reply-To: <01BC2F43.B1D0D9A0@dans-zyga-pc.zyga.com>

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On Thu, 13 Mar 1997, Dan Wolfe wrote:

> I would like to move my /var/mail directory, which is in the /
> partition, to the /usr partition.  I was thinking of establishing a link
> to do this.  Can anyone help me the steps involved to perform this.  Any
> help is certainly appreciated. 

Unless you did otherwise, /var is usually it's own partition.  (It's
supposed to be, at least, so if you fill /, it can still log the error
without causing bigger problems.)

Permissions is the tricky part here.  Someone PLEASE check my work, there
is always the possibility of stupid bugs.  There will be a temporary mail
burp while /var/mail is deleted -- you may wish to kill sendmail or drop
to single user mode while you're doing this.  It goes without saying you
must be root. 

Do the following:

mkdir /usr/target/directory
chmod 655 /usr/target/directory
chown bin:bin /usr/target/directory
tar -cpf - -C /var/mail . | tar xpf - -C /usr/target/directory

The tar man page has details.  THe original example didn't have the p
option on the left side, I added it just in case.

Ensure that /var/mail and your new directory match exactly, permissions
and ownership on the files are crucial otherwise no one will be able to
read the mail.

After the heiarchy is copied, 

rm -rf /var/mail 

to trash the old dir, then run

ln -s /usr/target/directory /var/mail

to make the link.

That should do it.   

Doug White                              | University of Oregon  
Internet:  dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu    | Residence Networking Assistant
http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~dwhite    | Computer Science Major




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