Size of /var worries me

[parv]

in message <20040107093835.37200.qmail at web40110.mail.yahoo.com>,
wrote Dino Vliet thusly...
>
> I've installed freebsd 4.9 and am currently busy with installing third
> party apps through the ports collection.  What worries me however is
> the size of my /var directory.  Take a look at my disk geometry
> (below)
> 
> I also had to get rid of a pkg.db file in the /var/db/pkg directory
> because it took a lot of space.

Unless that file os part of the core pkg* facilities, you have shot your
foot.


> q2) How can I get rid of files I don't need (like
> XFree86.0.log..)
> Other suggestions are welcome...

See syslogd(8), syslog(3), syslog.conf(5) & newsyslog(8).


> Filesystem Size Used Avail Capacity Mounted on
> 
> /dev/ad0s2a 126M 35M 81M 30% /
> 
> /dev/ad0s2f 98M 10.0K 91M 0% /tmp
> 
> /dev/ad0s2g 6.6G 1.5G 4.5G 25% /usr
> 
> /dev/ad0s2e 74M 67M 978K 99% /var

How do you feel about merging /tmp w/ /var and mounting /tmp on swap
partition, that you did not list, as memory file system?

Mind that core '/usr', here, occupies ~263 MB, minus perl, sendmail,
and fortran part of the base compiler suite.  You could divide your
current '/usr' to be ~400MB slice for only core components, move
'/var' to rest of the '/usr' slice, say '/usr2'.  That will left you
w/...

  swap <at least as much as RAM> (/tmp on swap)
  /    ~100 MB
  /usr ~400 MB
  /usr2 <rest MB> (/var symlinked to /usr2/var)


...but that is just one way to organize.  Your pattern of usage
will/should control if /tmp can be mounted on swap, and if to keep
/var as a directory not a slice.

Some would say just to keep separate / and combine everything else,
resulting in three slices: swap, /, /usr.

Also, newfs'ing procedure might itself constrain the space allocated
to a slice.

                            == xx ==

Here is my current layout...

  Filesystem  1K-blocks    Used   Avail Capacity  Mounted on
  /dev/ad0s2a    128990   82322   36350    69%    /
  /dev/ad0s2e    516062  453968   20810    96%    /usr
  /dev/ad0s2g   3106182 2569086  288602    90%    /usr2
  /dev/ad0s3f    984654  859182   46700    95%    /usr3
  /dev/ad0s3e   1753902  466558 1147032    29%    /cdrw
  mfs:15         372846       6  343014     0%    /tmp

  Device          1K-blocks     Used    Avail Capacity  Type
  /dev/ad0s2b        377304    51740   325564    14%    Interleaved


...only thing that i desire(d) is/was to give / much less than 128MB,
but couldn't (during the space slicing).

That and to combine /usr2 & /usr3 now.  But default inode space
allocation of 8%/slice will kill me anyway.  I really have to remember
about the newfs options next time.

Here is the holding pattern of each slice...

  /    - usual stuff

  /usr - large ports -- erlang, gcc, & java -- related files besides
          core components as listed above

  /usr2 - 'home', 'local' & 'X11R6', and some ports related files

  /usr3 -  'sup' tree for cvsup & ports tree.

  /cdrw - keeps 'src' tree & used for world building; works as port
          building space now that space on /usr3 is diminishing

  /tmp  - mounted on swap; rarely gets heavy use.


  - Parv

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