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Date:      Wed, 07 Jun 2000 09:52:34 +0100
From:      David Pick <D.M.Pick@qmw.ac.uk>
To:        Matthew Dillon <dillon@apollo.backplane.com>
Cc:        Cy Schubert - ITSD Open Systems Group <Cy.Schubert@uumail.gov.bc.ca>, "mouss" <usebsd@free.fr>, "Peter van Dijk" <petervd@vuurwerk.nl>, freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: FreeBSDDEATH.c.txt (mmap dirty page no check bug) 
Message-ID:  <E12zbZi-0000w9-00@xi.css.qmw.ac.uk>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 06 Jun 2000 23:55:03 PDT." <200006070655.XAA97086@apollo.backplane.com> 

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>     Maybe on your system it is, but try running a multi-user system tha=
t
>     way and you will quickly find your /var/tmp filled up to the brim. =
 Or,
>     worse, you will find one of the two tmp directories filling up whil=
e
>     the other remains entirely empty, or vise-versa depending on which
>     programs your users run.
> =

>     The argument that we should have two tmp's because one should be
>     treated differently from the other doesn't hold any water.  There
>     should be one tmp, period.  Since programs tend to use /var/tmp =

>     and /tmp interchangeably these days, one has to be a symlink to the=

>     other.  But trying to classify the two as having to have different
>     characteristics only creates sysadmin headaches.
> =

>     What it comes down to is that it is far easier and far more robust =
to
>     have a single (larger) temporary filesystem to maintain then to hav=
e =

>     two.

I think I have to agree with Matthews comments here. Generally, one
filesystem for temporary files uses disc space better and means there
are a smaller number of filesystems that can get filled up by rampant
"temporary" file creations.

Personally, I prefer a separate filesystem (on disc, not in memory) in
most cases, to avoid rampant temporary files screwing up the logs, but
if not I think "/var" is the best bet. "/usr" is not a good idea because
I think it's a good idea to mount "/usr" read-only if possible.

If you really want to make the distinction between "/tmp" and "/var/tmp"
in terms of files being automatically cleared, I suggest that a "temp"
filesystem called (for example) "/temp" could have a directory in it
called "temporally_temporary" which could be cleared, and:
	/var/tmp -> /temp
	/tmp     -> /temp/temporally_temporary
or, if there is no separate filesystem, a similar:
	/tmp     -> /var/tmp/temporally_temporary

-- =

	David Pick



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