Resizing /var

[Kevin Kinsey]

ptitoliv wrote:

>Hello everybody,
>
>I have a big problem on a FreeBSD 5.3 Box. It is an hosted server
>installed by an hosting service. But I didn't know what they smoke when
>they have installed the system but they sized the /var filesystem only
>to 200 MB which is not sufficient for my needs.
>
>I used an emergency solution which was to transfer some datas on /usr
>like databases but I am afraid that the problem will come back. So I am
>asking here if there is any solution to transfer free space from ./usr
>to /var.
>
>But there are some constraints :
>
>- I have no free unpartitioned space available
>- I can't format any partition because and I can't loose datas
>
>Is there any solution with some BSD tools in order to solve this problem ?
>
>Thank you for your answers
>
>Best Regards,
>Ptitoliv
>  
>

Not a "solution", per se, but I've been able to run servers
a long time with symlinks from /var/foo to /usr/var/foo,
and so on.  /var/log is a particularly good candate IMO,
but I see no reason that you couldn't try it with most
any subfolder(s).

The problem there is that it'd be best to do the symlinking
when the box was in single-user, and I doubt you have console
access in the situation you describe.  In should be possible,
depending on the box's application, to kill the daemon(s) using
said folder, mv the data to /usr, create the symlink and restart
the daemon(s), but it's maybe a little touchy, as I said, depending
on what you're moving and how many customers it would affect,
etc.

HTH,

Kevin Kinsey
DaleCo, S.P.