From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Sun May 2 06:32:41 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2027116A4CE; Sun, 2 May 2004 06:32:41 -0700 (PDT) Received: from diomedes.noc.ntua.gr (diomedes.noc.ntua.gr [147.102.222.220]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5788243D48; Sun, 2 May 2004 06:32:40 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from past@noc.ntua.gr) Received: from ajax.noc.ntua.gr (ajax.noc.ntua.gr [147.102.220.1]) i42DWdZq062168; Sun, 2 May 2004 16:32:39 +0300 (EEST) (envelope-from past@noc.ntua.gr) Received: from noc.ntua.gr (ppp-229-010.dialup.ntua.gr [147.102.229.10]) by ajax.noc.ntua.gr (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id i42DWc0H017873; Sun, 2 May 2004 16:32:38 +0300 (EEST) (envelope-from past@noc.ntua.gr) Message-ID: <4094F86E.2020908@noc.ntua.gr> Date: Sun, 02 May 2004 16:32:30 +0300 From: Panagiotis Astithas Organization: NTUA/NMC User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040428 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG References: <200404301403.50634.past@noc.ntua.gr> <20040430123040.GB30157@melusine.cuivre.fr.eu.org> <20040430211948.GC85783@dragon.nuxi.com> In-Reply-To: <20040430211948.GC85783@dragon.nuxi.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: Thomas Quinot Subject: Re: Change default dumpdir to /usr/crash? X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 02 May 2004 13:32:41 -0000 David O'Brien wrote: > On Fri, Apr 30, 2004 at 02:30:40PM +0200, Thomas Quinot wrote: > >>* Panagiotis Astithas, 2004-04-30 : >> >> >>>I was wondering (since being bitten by this occasionally) why don't >>>we change the default dumpdir in /etc/default/rc.conf to /usr/crash >>>instead of /var/crash? The default partitioning scheme in sysinstall >>>(when you press 'A') creates a /var with only 256MB, whereas it >>>retains a huge amount of space for /usr. Shouldn't we help Joe "the >>>defaults" User have working crashdumps? >> >>The proper fix would probably be to change the default partitioning >>scheme, not to move the crash dumps. I think one property we try to >>guarantee is that /usr be mountable read-only through NFS for a cluster >>of workstations, whereas /var is always mounted read-write, for its >>purpose is to contain files whose contents *vary* over time. > > > All correct. > > Panagiotis, please instead propose a proper size for /var. Hmmm, tricky. In my office alone I can count at least 5 systems with different amounts of memory, from 128 MB to 1 GB. Now only the first one can get crashdumps in a 256 MB /var. If we resize /var to 1 GB (as I usually do) we get working crashdumps in 4 out of 5. Upping it to 2 GB we get all 5 of my systems. The maximum configuration of 4 GB (for 32-bit systems) needs a 4.5 GB /var, which is not too much for the 60 GB hard disks we buy nowadays in laptops (servers come with larger disks and need more space in /var for logs, anyway). If we cater for 64-bit systems too, we need even more... I think I would be conservative and suggest a 1 GB /var for now. -- Panagiotis Astithas Electrical & Computer Engineer, PhD Network Management Center National Technical University of Athens, Greece