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Date:      Tue, 27 Jan 1998 16:24:55 -0500 (EST)
From:      Andrew Webster <andrew@guardian.fortress.org>
To:        lamaster@george.arc.nasa.gov
Cc:        freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Sendmail - low on space
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.96.980127162021.21902F-100000@guardian.fortress.org>
In-Reply-To: <199801272034.MAA04209@george.arc.nasa.gov>

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I'll jump in on this one as I've been bitten by the small /var more than
once!

Watch out for /tmp too as the the local mail delivery agent called by
sendmail (usually rmail) will write into /tmp. So if you are trying
to deliver a large file it may still fail, and even if you have the space
in /var/mail.

I create my systems without a physical /var parition and symlink /var and
/tmp into /usr/var and /usr/tmp respectively, this eliminates all
problems, and you don't end up "wasting" lots of disk space for temporary
files.

Can we make this the default of sysinstall?

Alternatively you CAN create a biggish /var partion and link /tmp into
/var/tmp.



On Tue, 27 Jan 1998 lamaster@george.arc.nasa.gov wrote:

> |>> At 07:18 PM 1/27/98 +0000, Damian Hamill wrote:
> |>> >Mark Segal wrote:
> |>> >> dennis wrote:
> |>> >> will proably see the disk usage on /var is really high like 90%+ this is
> |>> >> probably do to some user with 14 megs of email.. :)
> |>> >
> |>> >Yes consider moving your mail queue (/var/spool/mqueue) to your /usr
> |>> >partition and symlinking to it.
> |>> 
> |>> Unless disk IO and space is an issue, where a nth disk 
> |>>    is mounted a /var, I symlink the entire /var to /usr/var 
> |>>    when installing.  No sense deciding how much to reserve for 
> |>>    /var and /usr and more economical for single disk installs.
> 
> 
> I know it is unfashionable right now to say this, and, 
> each to his own taste, but, /var was created for a reason.
> The reason hasn't really gone away.  I think it in 
> multiple-user environments it is good planning 
> to decide how much to reserve in advance for, e.g., 
> the user mail input queues.  As well as user home 
> directories and other similar requirements.
> 
> In other words, while the original user needs help and probably
> doesn't feel like re-partitioning the disk at this point,
> in general, I recommend planning the /var partition in advance 
> and partitioning the disk accordingly.  The FreeBSD sysinstall 
> defaults are reasonable for smallish disks, but most people 
> have more memory and bigger disks today, and would benefit from
> generally larger partitions (including swap).  But, the basic 
> partitioning is very reasonable; the default sizes for /, swap,
> and /var, should probably be larger for larger disks.
> 
> 
> 
> -Hugh LaMaster
> 
>   Hugh LaMaster, M/S 258-5,     ASCII Email:  hlamaster@mail.arc.nasa.gov
>   NASA Ames Research Center     Or:           lamaster@nas.nasa.gov
>   Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000  No Junkmail:  USC 18 section 2701
>   Phone:  415/604-1056          Disclaimer:   Unofficial, personal *opinion*.
> 
> 

Andrew Webster                              andrew@pubnix.net   
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