In <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Andrew Prewett
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> typed:
> Today Mike Meyer wrote:
> > In <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Andrew Prewett
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> typed:
> > > Today Kirk Strauser wrote:
> > > > At 2003-01-07T17:35:49Z, Andrew Prewett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > > > > Normally the master.passwd is backed up regularly by cron (/var/backups),
> > > > > so maybe no need to backup it again.
> > > > Were you joking? Surely you're not implying that there's no need to copy
> > > > the data to tape (which is the most common use for dump) since it now exists
> > > > in two places on the same hard drive - are you?
> > > If /etc and /var are on the same HD, then it's not a production
> > > machine or the setup is simly wrong.
> > It may not be a machine you'd want to use for what you use production
> > machines for, but there are a fair number of production uses where you
> > only have one hd, or where having /var and /etc on the same file
> > system are acceptable.
> Yes, it depends. Sure, if it's not a home pc, then backup is a must,
> regardless how many hd's are in the machine. But I wouldn't put / and /var
> on the same fs, even on my home pc.
Even if it *is* a home pc, backup is a must. Any backup that sits on
the same machine is pretty much irrelevant. Sitting on the same disk
is just a worse case of irrelevant. The daily backups of /etc/whatever
are at best a convenience, and nobody competent would depend on them
as the sole backup of those files. Personally, I may have as many as
six current copies of the files in /etc: The one in /etc, the system
backup in /var, the copy I store in perforce, and the backups of each
of those.
I keep / and /var on the same fs on my two of my home machine. That's
because nothing crucial is going on on /var, and they both get the
same treatment for backups. For the non-production machine, it's
storage of the files I touch in perforce. For the machine that sits on
my desktop, it's a daily backup of the root file system, with weekly
backups that go offsite.
There's no universally applicable reason to put /var on a separate
file system. Various reasons may apply to any given production system,
and one or more probably apply to most. But just because you've never
encountered a machine that one of those reasons didn't apply to
doesn't mean that such machines don't exist.
<mike
--
Mike Meyer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.mired.org/consulting.html
Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information.
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