/var or /usr for data?

[Bill Vermillion]

When asked his whereabouts on Sat, Aug 25, 2007 at 04:34 ,
freebsd-questions-request at freebsd.org took the fifth, drank it,
and then slurred:

> Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2007 14:35:27 -0400
> From: Jerry McAllister <jerrymc at msu.edu>
> Subject: Re: /var or /usr for data?
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

> On Fri, Aug 24, 2007 at 08:19:43AM +0200, Wojciech Puchar wrote:

> > >It would appear that the "proper" allocation of filesystems
> > >on FreeBSD is to put all data in /usr. I'm used to this and
> > >have been doing it for years.

> > my favourite "proper" allocation is to make ONE partition
> > m(/) and nothing ore. and forget all problems about how to
> > mpartition your drive right...

> That works for some situations. But, there are protections,
> conveniences and backup efficiencies that thoughtful
> partitioning provide that all-in-one doesn't.

I've been running Unix systems for a long time.  I've noted that if
a filesystem fails - it almost invariably is /.  If you totally
trash it then you have to reload ALL the data and programs you have
on the system.

And with FBSD if you make root a reasonable size. I am running
about 250MB for / - in a server only environment.  500MB would
be safe however.

Then if something happens you can just rebuild / - or totally
reinstall the /, while NOT making new file systems on the remaining
partitions you have.

I will say that drives are more reliable than ever, but having
spent hours recovering systems [commercial ones in the past] for
someone who thought the best was to put 'all your eggs in one
basket - eg /' was the right way, I've avoided strenuously.

And applications such as MySQL give you options as to where to
store the data.  If you didn't do that during install it's quite
easy to make symlinks to point the data to an approved place
on your HD.

And >IF< you have a program run amock and start filling things up,
having everything on / will make recovery much harder.  However
cleaning up after one of those messes will teach you a lot.

A friend of mine has a motto of "learn by destroying".  Having
a system with only / may be one step along that path :-)

Bill


-- 
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com