Newbie: Correct directory for file server
Scott W
wegster at mindcore.net
Tue Nov 11 20:26:09 PST 2003
Tom Munro Glass wrote:
>>Hi Tom- /usr doesn't _have_ to be mounted read-only, but it's not
>>uncommon to do it on systems connected to the net/susceptible to
>>hacking/just for security. Default Sun for home is /export home,
>>primarily b/c Solaris thinks it's always the NFS server ;-) Most Linux
>>distros use /home, and I'll admit I'm not positive what freeBSD uses as
>>a default, but I expect it to be /home and again, NOT under the /usr
>>tree- home directories contain dynamic, changing data. The /usr
>>filesystem remains static aside from the occasional app that 'must' be
>>installed into /usr/local, or adding vendor packages (think base
>>packages or ports installed for freeBSD), which once it's set up for a
>>production system, may actually stay static for years in some cases
>>(with the possible exception of security fixes depending on the
>>environment). Again, mounting the home dir as /usr/home would preclude
>>you from ever even considering mounting /usr as read-only (or
>>'immutable' is I _think_ the other freeBSD option?)
>>
>>So, not sure why your system is set up the way it is, but fairly likely
>>it was done that way because of mis-judging disk space requirements, or
>>the way the drive(s) were partitioned... you can always create a new
>>home dir and copy it over via:
>>rm -f /home (removes symlink)
>>mkdir /home
>>cd /usr/home
>>tar cvf - . | (cd /home && tar xvf - )
>>
>>Scott
>>
>>
>>
>
>Thanks again Scott. I understand what you're saying about /usr being for
>mainly static data and this stacks up with what I've read about Linux and
>FreeBSD. So I was very surprised when I installed 4.9-RELEASE on a brand new
>machine (completely blank disks) and it made /home as a symlink to /usr/home!
>But this seems to be the default for FreeBSD.
>
>I'm half way through creating new filesystems for 'home' and 'export' and
>copying the data across (thanks for the tar tip) and I just have to decide
>where to mount them.
>
>Chris Howells suggests mounting the 'home' filesystem at /usr/home and I think
>he is suggesting that 'export' would mount at /usr/home/export. This
>contradicts what you have said above so I'm confused!
>
>Chris/Scott - I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this.
>
>Tom
>
>
Heh- wasn't the joys of C vs C++ enough? ;-) Really not much else to
say on it- different people have different reasons, just as some people
use only a single / filesystem. I don't, except in the case of what
used to be a triple OS booting laptop...some of my preferences I think
are pretty 'standard,' others by running out of disk space or filling up
the 'wrong' filesystem, or simply trying to keep large or growing
filesystems 'sane.'...but sane to me, may not be to someone else ;-)
Oh, I don't think Chris said anything about mounting export _under_
home- export is more of a 'sanity' thing when you have a ton of growing
filesystems- on some systems, you really don't know going into it just
how much storage you may wind up attaching, OR what it might be used
for, etc...so imposing a _consistent_ layout from the start (eg,
anything that will be exported via NFS goes under /export/* , which
generally includes home directories which become /export/home (and you
can always symlink back to /home if you'd like, unsure if freeBSDs
automounter does things the same as Solaris. Likewise, if you were also
going to run Samba to export shares to Windoze systems, in an ideal
world you'd find a combination where both Unix and Windows files might
co-exist under a user's home directory, if they/you are
manipulating/editing in both platforms (OpenOffice or apps under WINE,
etc), music shared (which uhh, I never do of course.. ;-) under
/export/music etc etc....and /usr/* IMHO simply should not have 'data'
in it, or anything that has the capability to be changed often..
One of the nice things about freeBSD is that most *nixes have for years
tried to impose 'the right way' to do things with respect to directory
layout...freeBSD seems to be the first I've seen that does it
consistently, although differently in some cases
(/usr/local/etc)...anyways, the point is- don't ruin that, for your OWN
sanity's sake. If you don't like my personal preferences, come up with
something that makess sense to YOU, and that won't drive you insane 5
years down the road when you STILL might have some of the same disks, or
at least data copied over to new disks...
Scott
Scott
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