Correcting my own msg (was Sanity and /var/tmp)

[Matthew Seaman]

On Sun, Oct 19, 2003 at 12:52:52PM -0700, wolfie at cotse.net wrote:
> On Sunday 19 October 2003 12:36 pm, I sent a message with a few ugly 
> typos. 
> 
> It should have read: 
> >  This may be an incredibly stupid question. Nevertheless I'm gonna 
> ask...
> >
> >   Is it safe and sane in a RELENG_5_1 system to create and use
> > /var/ tmp via a script in /etc/rc.local:
> >
> >  	[no entry in FSTAB]
> >  	mdconfig -a -t swap -s ... -u 10
> >  	newfs -O2 /dev/md10
> >  	mount /md10 /var/tmp
> >  	chmod 1777 /var/tmp

Using a memory based filesystem for /tmp (rather than /var/tmp) is
certainly viable.  Which ever temporary file system is involved, you
should be able to configure it entirely out of /etc/fstab -- see the
mdmfs(8) man page.

Historically /var/tmp was always a "real" filesystem and the contents
of /var/tmp were expected to persist across reboots.  Stuff in /tmp
was expected to disappear.  However, nowadays that distinction is
fading away and many people will advise you to have just one temporary
file system and use sym-links to make it appear in all of the expected
places.

Running with a memory based /var/tmp should be fine generally.  You'll
need to double check that you aren't running any applications which
rely on the persistence of /var/tmp over reboots.  That's going to be
uncommon nowadays, but there are a couple of examples I can think of
directly: eg. vi(1) won't be able to recover editor files across
reboots and the TeX/LaTeX/metafont font cache will be wiped out by the
reboot and so forth.

	Cheers,

	Matthew

-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                       26 The Paddocks
                                                      Savill Way
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey         Marlow
Tel: +44 1628 476614                                  Bucks., SL7 1TH UK
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 187 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/attachments/20031020/69b03be3/attachment.bin