From owner-freebsd-hackers Fri Apr 11 10:15:52 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id KAA04029 for hackers-outgoing; Fri, 11 Apr 1997 10:15:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dirac.phys.washington.edu (dirac.phys.washington.edu [128.95.93.1]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id KAA04021 for ; Fri, 11 Apr 1997 10:15:46 -0700 (PDT) Received: by dirac.phys.washington.edu (951211.SGI.8.6.12.PATCH1042/UW-NDC Revision: 2.25 ) id KAA01708; Fri, 11 Apr 1997 10:15:45 -0700 From: "William R. Somsky" Message-Id: <199704111715.KAA01708@dirac.phys.washington.edu> Subject: Re: on the subject of changes to -RELEASEs... To: hackers@freefall.freebsd.org Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 10:15:45 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <199704110029.RAA13816@freefall.freebsd.org> from "owner-hackers-digest@freefall.freebsd.org" at Apr 10, 97 05:29:45 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] Content-Type: text Sender: owner-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk > > how about making these "well known" files such as /etc/resolv.conf, > > /etc/host.conf and other stuff symlinks into /var/etc ? This is Um... Maybe I'm wrong, tell me if I am, but I thought that, at least at one time, one of the virtues of /var was that it was meant to be a "semi-scratch" space, containing spool directories and logs and such, but nothing critical -- if it got filled or trashed, you perhaps lost mail messages and print jobs and such, but didn't destroy your system. If the traditional /etc local system modifications files go there, it loses all these nice properties. But then, I guess I have seen things like yp put there, which would be nasty to lose. Was this ever the case? Or have I completely misinterpreted what /var was meant for? I'm confused... Please, enlighten me a bit, if you can (tall order, I know :-). ________________________________________________________________________ Dr. William R. Somsky somsky@phys.washington.edu Department of Physics, Box 351560 B432 Physics-Astro Bldg Univ. of Washington, Seattle WA 98195-1560 206/616-2954