Date: Sun, 20 Aug 1995 12:22:29 -0500 From: rkw@dataplex.net (Richard Wackerbarth) To: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Some thoughts on diskless systems, etc. Message-ID: <v02130501ac5d18333479@[199.183.109.242]>
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I have been thinking about the problems associated with maintaining a group of machines that should all be basically the same. If we divide the filespace into a few chunks, they appear to fall into a few categories. 1) Shared alterable eg: /home, /usr/home, or whatever.. 2) Shared readonly eg: /usr/share 3) Local alterable eg: /var 4) Local readonly eg: /stand Looking at the /usr directory, most of it should really be readonly. The same is true on /bin. If done properly, /etc would be readonly, but each machine might need its own version. Things in there that need to change can be linked to /var/etc, for example. So here are my questions. 1) Why does "/" need to be r/w? 2) What do you think of the following: PROPOSAL: Modify "/sbin/init" to use a file in "/" (eg: "/rc") rather than "/etc/rc" as its initial file. IMPACTS: That way I could start by "mount"ing my own private "/etc". The default could simply be a one-liner ". /etc/rc". Diskless systems (of the same type) would all get the same "/" from their server. Their "/rc" would then do something to mount the workstation's very small "/etc" filesystem, and continue with common structure. If I am doing backups, much of the base system is now on ronly media. I need only back up my custom "/etc" files to be able to rebuild a system. My working backups might also include "/var" or portions thereof, as well as the home directories, etc. Comments? Questions? Suggestions? ---- Richard Wackerbarth rkw@dataplex.net
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