Tollef Fog Heen said on Tue, May 17, 2011 at 09:19:09AM +0200: > Sounds like you want /var to just be what should go in /var/cache, > really.
That's a good point. Maybe we should first look at what is under /var in the FHS: cache Application cache data lib Variable state information local Variable data for /usr/local lock Lock files log Log files and directories opt Variable data for /opt run Data relevant to running processes spool Application spool data tmp Temporary files preserved between system reboots For me there are different nature of data stored there. cache, lock, log, run and tmp contain data that one could lost without necessarily having to resort to backup to restire the system in a working state. I understand that loosing logs could be a problem, but these data were generated, so putting empty log in place doesn't prevent the system to go on. OTOH, lib, local, opt and spool (partly) contain generally data that are not able to be rebuilt without a backup. Maybe that's where locating them elsewhere (under /srv or another mount point) could make sense. But indeed the structure should be described. Using /var/lib to store a DB seems to me not in line with the definition given in the FHS as /var/lib should contain "state information" which "is generally used to preserve the condition of an application between invocations and between different instances of the same application". For the reserved ones: /var/backups /var/cron /var/msgs /var/preserve I think the data contained here could not be found again without backup. But they are not really described in the FHS. Then for the specific options: account Process accounting logs (optional) crash System crash dumps (optional) games Variable game data (optional) mail User mailbox files (optional) yp Network Information Service (NIS) database files (optional) Except /var/mail (maybe games to keep scores ;-) I consider them as containing temporary data that could be lost. So my main concern as a sysadmin is to loose valuable data hidden under /var that I could easily forget to backup, whereas if these same data were put in another place, it would make that operation much easier. Again that may be just me. Bruno. -- Open Source & Linux Profession Lead EMEA / http://opensource.hp.com HP/Intel/Red Hat Open Source Solutions Initiative / http://www.hpintelco.net http://www.HyPer-Linux.org http://mondorescue.org http://project-builder.org La musique ancienne? http://www.musique-ancienne.org http://www.medieval.org _______________________________________________ fhs-discuss mailing list [email protected] https://lists.linux-foundation.org/mailman/listinfo/fhs-discuss
