RE: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] hard drive partitioning

[Rick Buford <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

Why not just create a 4th partition for /var? On my more logging intensive
boxes, I actually devote 2gb to /var....Is there some drawback (other than
devoting too much space and not needing it)?

Rick Buford - Systems Administrator, Infrastructure

-----Original Message-----
From: EMAIL:PROTECTED
[mailto:EMAIL:PROTECTED]On Behalf Of Kmicic
Sent: Thursday, February 08, 2001 1:19 AM
To: EMAIL:PROTECTED
Subject: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] hard drive partitioning


this was going to be a mental note to self, but since some ppl may
disagree, i post this to the discussion list in case it starts a flame
war.

i do this mistake all the time, and the linux arch designers seem to
promote this, so here's a word of wisdom:
if you're going to have mostly a single user system you will most likely
want 3 partitions. you need 3, not just two (swap and filesystem), cause
lilo expects to find kernel image in the 1st 1000  or so blocks (within
the 1st gig of your hd), so if by any chance the file with the kernel
image gets put beyond that limit, you may be in trouble. so.... the
system designers seem to encourage a small root partition (say 200Mb),
and the rest /usr, like this:
- 1st partiotion (about 200Mb) root (/)
- 2nd partition (128Mb) swap
- 3rd partition (everything else) /usr

well, duh... at the same time on your average system the /var itself
takes 200Mb and can grow beyond that, filling the root partition almost
immediately. there are 2 ways around it: 

1) a quick hack - move /var to /usr/var and then link it symbolically.
try at your own risk - i just did it, but then i realized how idiotic it
was to try it without taking precautions.

2) don't mount root on your 1st (small) partition! the best way to split
2 partition file system is probably:
 - 1st partition (up to 200Mb, but can easily be 100Mb since it'll just
contain kernel images)    /boot  !!! <- chess notation uses this to
indicate a particularly good move ;-)
 - 2nd partition (up to 128Mb - if you need more, get more RAM) swap
 - 3rd partition (everything else) : root (/)

if your installer is not smart enough, you may have to do a few things
by hand:
1. copy kernel image (proably vmlinuz) from / to /boot
2. put an entry in /etc/lilo.conf indicating where the new kernel image
is, and re-run lilo
this is still a much better solution than the traditional (/, /usr)
split, for a mostly single-user system, where you don't want to worry
about filling up some partition while you're copying files around or
installing stuff. 

any comments?

- Km
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