Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 23:00:36 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: tom@sdf.com (Tom) Cc: tlambert@primenet.com, Don.Lewis@tsc.tdk.com, craig@ProGroup.COM, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Partitioning suggestions? Message-ID: <199711192300.QAA06547@usr01.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.95q.971119120516.25964H-100000@misery.sdf.com> from "Tom" at Nov 19, 97 12:13:20 pm
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> I can't accept that idea of a "graceful" failure. I don't know if there > are any "catastrophic" (ie. eaten e-mail, destroyed password > files, etc) failures in FreeBSD, due to full filesystems. But the > so-called graceful failures are the real essence of this thread. How do > you avoid them in the first place? By not engaging in sysadm pilot error that results in filled drives. > You probably do not realize that most SMTP sending software lacks auto > retry. As soon as Sendmail starts refusing connections because of lack of > space, expect your helpdesk to light up like a christmas tree. The better to encourage you to correct your pilot error after the fact. I don't have a problem with this feedback loop. If user complaints are more of a problem than reacting to the complaint (ie: possible loss of sales, etc.), then that's yet another feedback loop, one that encourages you to be proactive instead of reactive. These are all good things, since they force people out of denial about the way the universe works. 8-). > > > Who cares? Many process run as root, so they are all competing for the > > > reserve. Also, non-root processes can be critical too. > > > > Set quotas. The failure to set quotas is pilot error. > > Quotas don't apply to root. "Doctor, it hurts when I run as root...". As you pointed out before (and I pointed out before), if running as root is a problem, then fix that problem instead of kludging hard group quotas by limiting FS size. > > > newsyslog can limit logs to a particular size. It has no idea of how > > > much space might actually be available. It can not avoid the issue, > > > perhaps only limit it. It is only guarrenteed to avoid the issue, if > > > /var/log is a separate filesystem. > > > > That doesn't guarantee it. What if your FS fills up with PID files? > > What would be creating pid files in /var/log? In /var. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
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