subject:"\"One or Four\\\?\""

On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 05:14:35PM +0100, Julian H. Stacey wrote:

> > > I remember when & why the list was set up.
> > > See src/ etc/motd
> 
> > I don't see how this is so OT for a general questions list - regardless
> > of verbiage about its charter.   A general question was asked and
> > many people responded in various ways, hopefully all to the benefit
> > of the FreeBSD system and community.
> 
> FreeBSD thrives on co-operation.  Conforming to FreeBSD lists remits
> is part of the co-operation, & a requirement to post to lists.
> Read, memorise & conform by posting to list with most appropriate remit 
> on a per thread basis.
>   http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo

Yes.  I have read this and find that this thread conforms to what is
described on that page.   

  This is the mailing list for questions about FreeBSD.  You should not 
  send "how to" questions to the technical lists unless you consider the 
  question to be pretty technical.

So, the OP posted a question about normal and/or preferred use 
of FreeBSD and people responded.  Or do you consider this thread 
to be too technical?   Maybe the discussion could fit in Hackers.

jerry

> 
> Cheers,
> Julian
> -- 
> Julian Stacey, BSD Unix Linux C Sys Eng Consultants Munich http://berklix.com
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RE: One or Four?

2012-02-20 Thread Devin Teske



> -Original Message-
> From: owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org [mailto:owner-freebsd-
> questi...@freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Jerry McAllister
> Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2012 1:34 PM
> To: Damien Fleuriot
> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: One or Four?
> 
> On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 12:07:30PM +0100, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
> 
> >
> >
> > On 2/17/12 11:05 PM, Robison, Dave wrote:
> > > Hiya,
> > [snip]
> > > We realize that one can use bsdinstall to create as many partitions as
> > > one wants. However, the new default is for one partition and swap. We
> > > want to know if people would prefer the older style default with four
> > > partitions and swap when selecting "Guided Partitioning" and "Use Entire
> > > Disk".
> > >
> > > Let the majority decide which layout is preferred for the default.
> > >
> > > Thanks,
> > >
> > > Dave
> > >
> >
> > Seeing as people using the default are likely to be novices, I vote in
> > favor of ONE.
> >
> > The reasoning being that novices are less likely to be able to correctly
> > size their /usr and /var than a seasoned sysadmin.
> 
> So, we have now had scads of 'discussion' about schemes for disk
> partitioning and there were a bunch, plus arguments about which is
> the best with each person convinced that theirs is.
> 
> As far as I can see, this all leads to the conclusion that the one
> design that gives a reasonable and simple set of choices for all fits
> the FreeBSD model  that of providing a well made system and allowing
> the user/sysadmin to configure it the way [s]he wants/needs rather than
> imposing a common usage on everyone.   Next we'll be arguing about which
> windows manager is mandatory for users to include at install time.
> 
> So, Polytropon's three choice pattern is good.   Or, I could even
> suggest just two choices.
> 
>  [ ] all in one + swap
>Create one partition containing all subtrees
>plus one swap partition.
> 
>  [ ] user-defined
>Make your own partitioning selection manually.
>(Both number and size of partitions)
>with a reasonable way to specify partitions and sizes.
>The old Sysinstall way is not bad, but if it obsolete,
>then something as easy that fits the new GPT based system.
> 
> But, that middle choice that Polytropon suggested is OK to include
> if you think it is needed.  /, /tmp, /usr, /var, [/home] +swap
> 

Choosing the "2 option scheme" which removes the "legacy option" in my mind is
not an option.

It's "3 option scheme" (which includes the server/legacy option) or revert back
to the legacy scheme (period).
-- 
Devin

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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-20 Thread Julian H. Stacey

> > I remember when & why the list was set up.
> > See src/ etc/motd
> 
> Wow, you must be old.

Unless you are clueless, it's trivial to find when questions@ was
created, & easy to find when motd pointed to questions, those dates
are insufficient to predicate age.


> I don't see how this is so OT for a general questions list - regardless
> of verbiage about its charter.   A general question was asked and
> many people responded in various ways, hopefully all to the benefit
> of the FreeBSD system and community.

FreeBSD thrives on co-operation.  Conforming to FreeBSD lists remits
is part of the co-operation, & a requirement to post to lists.
Read, memorise & conform by posting to list with most appropriate remit 
on a per thread basis.
http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo

Cheers,
Julian
-- 
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Re: One or Four?

On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 07:38:14PM +0100, Julian H. Stacey wrote:

> Hi,
> Reference:
> > From:   Daniel Staal  
> > Date:   Sun, 19 Feb 2012 11:10:57 -0500 
> > Message-id:  
> 
> Daniel Staal wrote:
> > --As of February 19, 2012 3:30:15 PM +0100, Julian H. Stacey is alleged to 
> > have said:
> > 
> > > Beside the point: the Wrong list was posted to.
> > > questions@ list was created to help beginners,
> > > not to debate & invite votes to determine future design.
> > >
> > > FreeBSD lists have remits so people can read & write lists most
> > > tuned to interests.  Tossing non beginner support topics in questions@
> > > deprives other lists. Not all on hackers@ current@ & the many other
> > > list want to be on questions@ & vice versa.
> > >
> > > Please read list remits & subscribe & post most appropriate list per
> > > topic.
> > 
> > --As for the rest, it is mine.
> > 
> > I don't get 'beginners' from 'User questions and technical support'.  
> 
> I remember when & why the list was set up.
> See src/ etc/motd

Wow, you must be old.

I don't see how this is so OT for a general questions list - regardless
of verbiage about its charter.   A general question was asked and
many people responded in various ways, hopefully all to the benefit
of the FreeBSD system and community.

jerry
   

> Cheers,
> Julian
> -- 
> Julian Stacey, BSD Unix Linux C Sys Eng Consultants Munich http://berklix.com
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Re: One or Four?

On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 02:22:12AM -0500, Stephen Cook wrote:

> On 2/18/2012 8:03 PM, Erich Dollansky wrote:
> >On Sunday 19 February 2012 04:34:17 Jerry McAllister wrote:

> >>I don't see that this plan adds any significant complication or confusion.
> >>Nor does it prevent any of the schemes people have been advocating or
> >>requesting.
> >You seem to forget normal users who just want to use the system. They do 
> >not think of recovery until it actually happens.
> 
> I don't know if I count as a *normal* user but here's my two cents:
> 
> Some of you think it isn't a good idea to put everything on one 
> partition. I'm not yet ready to manually set them up. Every time I get 
> into it I read tens of articles and blogs and they all boil down to "it 
> depends".
> 
> So some middle-ground "this guy is willing to learn but can't set it up 
> optimally, and doesn't want a bad config because he is still somewhat 
> confused" option should be available, and possibly labeled as such.

So, then, you like the Polytropon schema of three options: two
with fairly reasonable generic options for those who do not
wish to work out any more usage specific pattern plus one for
the person willing and needful of something more specific to
their use - which you never need to study if one of the first
two is satisfactory for you.

jerry



> 
> -- Stephen
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Re: One or Four?

On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 10:55:01AM +0700, Erich Dollansky wrote:

> > > > Nor does it prevent any of the schemes people have been advocating or
> > > > requesting.
> > > 
> > > You seem to forget normal users who just want to use the system. 
> > > They do not think of recovery until it actually happens.
> > 
> > We forgot nothing.   They can just select option 1 and then later
> > when something happens so learn otherwise, if they ever do, they
> > will have option 3 to more specifically build their system according
> > to their newly perceived needs.
> 
> where do they get the knowledge from?

Same as always throughout history - from experience.
They can use the default until they discover what suits them better.

jerry


> 
> Erich
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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-19 Thread Julian H. Stacey

Hi,
Reference:
> From: Daniel Staal  
> Date: Sun, 19 Feb 2012 11:10:57 -0500 
> Message-id:

Daniel Staal wrote:
> --As of February 19, 2012 3:30:15 PM +0100, Julian H. Stacey is alleged to 
> have said:
> 
> > Beside the point: the Wrong list was posted to.
> > questions@ list was created to help beginners,
> > not to debate & invite votes to determine future design.
> >
> > FreeBSD lists have remits so people can read & write lists most
> > tuned to interests.  Tossing non beginner support topics in questions@
> > deprives other lists. Not all on hackers@ current@ & the many other
> > list want to be on questions@ & vice versa.
> >
> > Please read list remits & subscribe & post most appropriate list per
> > topic.
> 
> --As for the rest, it is mine.
> 
> I don't get 'beginners' from 'User questions and technical support'.  

I remember when & why the list was set up.
See src/ etc/motd


Cheers,
Julian
-- 
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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-19 Thread Daniel Staal

--As of February 19, 2012 3:30:15 PM +0100, Julian H. Stacey is alleged to 
have said:



Beside the point: the Wrong list was posted to.
questions@ list was created to help beginners,
not to debate & invite votes to determine future design.

FreeBSD lists have remits so people can read & write lists most
tuned to interests.  Tossing non beginner support topics in questions@
deprives other lists. Not all on hackers@ current@ & the many other
list want to be on questions@ & vice versa.

Please read list remits & subscribe & post most appropriate list per
topic.


--As for the rest, it is mine.

I don't get 'beginners' from 'User questions and technical support'.  It's 
probably the best place for most beginner's questions, but that isn't the 
same as 'the list is for beginners'.  Hackers@ might have been appropriate 
for this question, but it's not really a *technical* question: It's a 
*preference* question.  As such asking the group of general users isn't a 
bad idea, as it's their preferences that the question was aimed at...


It was a question for the users of FreeBSD.  Adressing it to the list for 
user questions may be an interesting interpretation of the grammar, but 
it's not an invalid one.


Daniel T. Staal

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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-19 Thread Julian H. Stacey

"Robison, Dave" wrote:
> On 02/17/2012 15:22, Julian H. Stacey wrote:
> >
> >
> >> Let the majority decide which layout is preferred for the default.
> > No. Bad idea. Not on questions@, the list of the least clued up,
> > the list raw beginners are referred to subscribe to.  At least get
> > a majority on hackers@ or current@ or arch@.  Some answers one sees
> > on questions@ are very good, but some are ... the other way.
> >
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Julian
> 
> Actually, the discussion and ideas so far have been very interesting and 
> helpful.

Beside the point: the Wrong list was posted to.
questions@ list was created to help beginners,
not to debate & invite votes to determine future design.

FreeBSD lists have remits so people can read & write lists most
tuned to interests.  Tossing non beginner support topics in questions@
deprives other lists. Not all on hackers@ current@ & the many other
list want to be on questions@ & vice versa.

Please read list remits & subscribe & post most appropriate list per topic.

Cheers,
Julian
-- 
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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-18 Thread Stephen Cook


On 2/18/2012 8:03 PM, Erich Dollansky wrote:

On Sunday 19 February 2012 04:34:17 Jerry McAllister wrote:

On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 12:07:30PM +0100, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
So, Polytropon's three choice pattern is good.   Or, I could even
suggest just two choices.

A normal user will use the first option here and get screwed when the file 
system got affected by a power failure. The second option is not an option for 
a general user.

But, that middle choice that Polytropon suggested is OK to include
if you think it is needed.  /, /tmp, /usr, /var, [/home] +swap

Yes, I strong urge you to leave this at least as an option. Just with a larger 
/ slice of 1 or better 2GB.

I don't see that this plan adds any significant complication or confusion.
Nor does it prevent any of the schemes people have been advocating or
requesting.

You seem to forget normal users who just want to use the system. They do not 
think of recovery until it actually happens.


I don't know if I count as a *normal* user but here's my two cents:

Some of you think it isn't a good idea to put everything on one 
partition. I'm not yet ready to manually set them up. Every time I get 
into it I read tens of articles and blogs and they all boil down to "it 
depends".


So some middle-ground "this guy is willing to learn but can't set it up 
optimally, and doesn't want a bad config because he is still somewhat 
confused" option should be available, and possibly labeled as such.


-- Stephen
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Re: One or Four?

Hi,

On Sunday 19 February 2012 11:40:22 Carl Johnson wrote:
> Erich Dollansky  writes:
> 
> > Hi,
> >
> > On Sunday 19 February 2012 04:34:17 Jerry McAllister wrote:
> >> On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 12:07:30PM +0100, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
> >> 
> >> > 
> >> 
> >> So, Polytropon's three choice pattern is good.   Or, I could even
> >> suggest just two choices.  
> >> 
> > yes, three options is ok.
> >
> >>  [ ] all in one + swap
> >>Create one partition containing all subtrees
> >>plus one swap partition.
> >>
> >>  [ ] user-defined
> >>Make your own partitioning selection manually.
> >>(Both number and size of partitions)
> >>with a reasonable way to specify partitions and sizes.
> >>The old Sysinstall way is not bad, but if it obsolete, 
> >>then something as easy that fits the new GPT based system.
> >> 
> > A normal user will use the first option here and get screwed when the
> > file system got affected by a power failure. The second option is not
> > an option for a general user. 
> 
> What will happen in the case of a power failure?  I just see an fsck
> when that happens, and I have been running unix and linux for about 20
> years.  I have always had multiple partitions in the past, but for 9.0 I
> went with the single partition.

it will not even boot if there is only a single slice with root and the rest on 
it if the background fsck cannot be run.

I have to go to real remote locations once in a while where an USP is not of 
real help anymore as the USP is not able to charge its battery before the next 
power failure comes. It happened there some times that the /usr slice needs a 
foreground check. Of course, all can be fixed.

I cannot imagine that this would still work if / is on the same slice as the 
rest of the data.

Of course, these are rare things but with the other standards of FreeBSD in 
mind, I would keep at least the visible option there so people are obviously 
made aware that there is something to consider.

What will beginners do when they are not able to restart their machine?

Take a pirated Windows CD and go back to the other trouble maker as there was 
no difference for them.

Of course, people like you and me would need this option only to safe a bit of 
time.

Erich
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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-18 Thread Carl Johnson

Erich Dollansky  writes:

> Hi,
>
> On Sunday 19 February 2012 04:34:17 Jerry McAllister wrote:
>> On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 12:07:30PM +0100, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
>> 
>> > 
>> 
>> So, Polytropon's three choice pattern is good.   Or, I could even
>> suggest just two choices.  
>> 
> yes, three options is ok.
>
>>  [ ] all in one + swap
>>Create one partition containing all subtrees
>>plus one swap partition.
>>
>>  [ ] user-defined
>>Make your own partitioning selection manually.
>>(Both number and size of partitions)
>>with a reasonable way to specify partitions and sizes.
>>The old Sysinstall way is not bad, but if it obsolete, 
>>then something as easy that fits the new GPT based system.
>> 
> A normal user will use the first option here and get screwed when the
> file system got affected by a power failure. The second option is not
> an option for a general user. 

What will happen in the case of a power failure?  I just see an fsck
when that happens, and I have been running unix and linux for about 20
years.  I have always had multiple partitions in the past, but for 9.0 I
went with the single partition.

-- 
Carl Johnsonca...@peak.org

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Re: One or Four?

Hi,

On Sunday 19 February 2012 09:30:55 Jerry McAllister wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 08:03:39AM +0700, Erich Dollansky wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > On Sunday 19 February 2012 04:34:17 Jerry McAllister wrote:
> > > On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 12:07:30PM +0100, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
> > > 
> > > So, Polytropon's three choice pattern is good.   Or, I could even
> > > suggest just two choices.  
> > > 
> > yes, three options is ok.
> > 
> > >  [ ] all in one + swap
> > >Create one partition containing all subtrees
> > >plus one swap partition.
> > >
> > >  [ ] user-defined
> > >Make your own partitioning selection manually.
> > >(Both number and size of partitions)
> > >with a reasonable way to specify partitions and sizes.
> > >The old Sysinstall way is not bad, but if it obsolete, 
> > >then something as easy that fits the new GPT based system.
> > > 
> > A normal user will use the first option here and get screwed when the file 
> > system got affected by a power failure. The second option is not an option 
> > for a general user.
> > 
> > > But, that middle choice that Polytropon suggested is OK to include
> > > if you think it is needed.  /, /tmp, /usr, /var, [/home] +swap
> > 
> > Yes, I strong urge you to leave this at least as an option. 
> > Just with a larger / slice of 1 or better 2GB.
> > > 
> > > I don't see that this plan adds any significant complication or confusion.
> > > Nor does it prevent any of the schemes people have been advocating or
> > > requesting.
> > 
> > You seem to forget normal users who just want to use the system. 
> > They do not think of recovery until it actually happens.
> 
> We forgot nothing.   They can just select option 1 and then later
> when something happens so learn otherwise, if they ever do, they
> will have option 3 to more specifically build their system according
> to their newly perceived needs.

where do they get the knowledge from?

Erich
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Re: One or Four?

Hi,

On Sunday 19 February 2012 04:34:17 Jerry McAllister wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 12:07:30PM +0100, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
> 
> > 
> 
> So, Polytropon's three choice pattern is good.   Or, I could even
> suggest just two choices.  
> 
yes, three options is ok.

>  [ ] all in one + swap
>Create one partition containing all subtrees
>plus one swap partition.
>
>  [ ] user-defined
>Make your own partitioning selection manually.
>(Both number and size of partitions)
>with a reasonable way to specify partitions and sizes.
>The old Sysinstall way is not bad, but if it obsolete, 
>then something as easy that fits the new GPT based system.
> 
A normal user will use the first option here and get screwed when the file 
system got affected by a power failure. The second option is not an option for 
a general user.

> But, that middle choice that Polytropon suggested is OK to include
> if you think it is needed.  /, /tmp, /usr, /var, [/home] +swap

Yes, I strong urge you to leave this at least as an option. Just with a larger 
/ slice of 1 or better 2GB.
> 
> I don't see that this plan adds any significant complication or confusion.
> Nor does it prevent any of the schemes people have been advocating or
> requesting.

You seem to forget normal users who just want to use the system. They do not 
think of recovery until it actually happens.

Erich
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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-18 Thread Jerry McAllister

On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 08:03:39AM +0700, Erich Dollansky wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> On Sunday 19 February 2012 04:34:17 Jerry McAllister wrote:
> > On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 12:07:30PM +0100, Damien Fleuriot wrote:
> > 
> > So, Polytropon's three choice pattern is good.   Or, I could even
> > suggest just two choices.  
> > 
> yes, three options is ok.
> 
> >  [ ] all in one + swap
> >Create one partition containing all subtrees
> >plus one swap partition.
> >
> >  [ ] user-defined
> >Make your own partitioning selection manually.
> >(Both number and size of partitions)
> >with a reasonable way to specify partitions and sizes.
> >The old Sysinstall way is not bad, but if it obsolete, 
> >then something as easy that fits the new GPT based system.
> > 
> A normal user will use the first option here and get screwed when the file 
> system got affected by a power failure. The second option is not an option 
> for a general user.
> 
> > But, that middle choice that Polytropon suggested is OK to include
> > if you think it is needed.  /, /tmp, /usr, /var, [/home] +swap
> 
> Yes, I strong urge you to leave this at least as an option. 
> Just with a larger / slice of 1 or better 2GB.
> > 
> > I don't see that this plan adds any significant complication or confusion.
> > Nor does it prevent any of the schemes people have been advocating or
> > requesting.
> 
> You seem to forget normal users who just want to use the system. 
> They do not think of recovery until it actually happens.

We forgot nothing.   They can just select option 1 and then later
when something happens so learn otherwise, if they ever do, they
will have option 3 to more specifically build their system according
to their newly perceived needs.

jerry

> 
> Erich
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Re: /usr/home vs /home (was: Re: One or Four?)

2012-02-18 Thread Michael Sierchio

On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 3:10 PM, Daniel Staal  wrote:
> --As of February 18, 2012 2:46:32 PM -0800, Michael Sierchio is alleged to
> have said:
>
>> man hier

True, but /usr/... was a typical place to find users' home
directories, since /usr is mounted when the system goes to
multiuser mode.

/home and /usr/home weren't originally featured in UNIX.  /usr/kudzu
might have been kudzu's home directory, or - in a large installation,
before the advent of directory hashing, a scheme like /usr/k/ku/kudzu
was used to limit the number of directories in each component of the
path.
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Re: /usr/home vs /home (was: Re: One or Four?)

2012-02-18 Thread Daniel Staal

--As of February 18, 2012 2:46:32 PM -0800, Michael Sierchio is alleged to 
have said:



man hier


--As for the rest, it is mine.

...Doesn't mention /home (or /usr/home) once.  ;)

Pointing people to the docs which answers their question is good.  But 
please make sure it actually answers their question.


Thanks to everyone who has answered.

Daniel T. Staal

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Re: /usr/home vs /home (was: Re: One or Four?)

2012-02-18 Thread Matthew Story

On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 5:46 PM, Michael Sierchio wrote:

> man hier
>

man 7 hier makes no mention of /home or /usr/home at all ...

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-- 
regards,
matt
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Re: /usr/home vs /home (was: Re: One or Four?)

2012-02-18 Thread Michael Sierchio

man hier
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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-18 Thread Jerry McAllister

On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 12:07:30PM +0100, Damien Fleuriot wrote:

> 
> 
> On 2/17/12 11:05 PM, Robison, Dave wrote:
> > Hiya,
> [snip]
> > We realize that one can use bsdinstall to create as many partitions as
> > one wants. However, the new default is for one partition and swap. We
> > want to know if people would prefer the older style default with four
> > partitions and swap when selecting "Guided Partitioning" and "Use Entire
> > Disk".
> > 
> > Let the majority decide which layout is preferred for the default.
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > 
> > Dave
> > 
> 
> Seeing as people using the default are likely to be novices, I vote in
> favor of ONE.
> 
> The reasoning being that novices are less likely to be able to correctly
> size their /usr and /var than a seasoned sysadmin.

So, we have now had scads of 'discussion' about schemes for disk
partitioning and there were a bunch, plus arguments about which is
the best with each person convinced that theirs is.

As far as I can see, this all leads to the conclusion that the one 
design that gives a reasonable and simple set of choices for all fits 
the FreeBSD model  that of providing a well made system and allowing 
the user/sysadmin to configure it the way [s]he wants/needs rather than 
imposing a common usage on everyone.   Next we'll be arguing about which
windows manager is mandatory for users to include at install time.

So, Polytropon's three choice pattern is good.   Or, I could even
suggest just two choices.  

 [ ] all in one + swap
   Create one partition containing all subtrees
   plus one swap partition.

 [ ] user-defined
   Make your own partitioning selection manually.
   (Both number and size of partitions)
   with a reasonable way to specify partitions and sizes.
   The old Sysinstall way is not bad, but if it obsolete, 
   then something as easy that fits the new GPT based system.

But, that middle choice that Polytropon suggested is OK to include
if you think it is needed.  /, /tmp, /usr, /var, [/home] +swap

I don't see that this plan adds any significant complication or confusion.
Nor does it prevent any of the schemes people have been advocating or
requesting.

jerry 

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Re: /usr/home vs /home (was: Re: One or Four?)

2012-02-18 Thread Jerry McAllister

On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 09:16:34PM -0500, Daniel Staal wrote:

> --As of February 17, 2012 11:46:23 PM +0100, Polytropon is alleged to have 
> said:
> 
> >Well, to be honest, I never liked the "old style" default
> >with /home being part of /usr. As I mentioned before, _my_
> >default style for separated partitions include:
> >
> > /
> > swap
> > /tmp
> > /var
> > /usr
> > /home
> >
> >In special cases, add /opt or /scratch as separate partitions
> >with intendedly limited sizes.
> >
> >You can see that all user data is kept independently from
> >the rest of the system. It can easily be switched over to
> >a separate "home disk" if needed.
> 
> --As for the rest, it is mine.
> 
> I'm in agreement with you on that I like to have /home be a separate 
> partition, and not under /usr.  (Of course, my current zfs system has 40 
> partitions...)  Partly though I recognize that I like it because that's 
> what I'm used to, and how I learned to set it up originally.  (My first 
> unix experience was with OpenBSD, over 10 years ago now.)
> 
> I've never seen anything listing the main reasons for having /home under 
> /usr though.  I figure there must be a decent reason why.  Would anyone 
> care to enlighten me?  What are the perceived advantages?  (Particularly if 
> you then make a symlink to /home.)
> 
> Just a question that's been bugging me, as I read through different FreeBSD 
> docs.

I think it was just ancient history when everything was small and besides 
root, swap and /tmp was in /usr.

jerry

  
> 
> Daniel T. Staal
> 
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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-18 Thread RW

On Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:10:00 -0800
Robison, Dave wrote:

> On 02/17/2012 15:55, Chuck Swiger wrote:
> >
> > Yes.  It works as intended even when /tmp is part of a single root
> > partition; although mounting /tmp as a RAM- or swap-based tmpfs
> > filesystem might be better for many situations.
> 
> Sure it has its uses, but now you're jumping into new territory where 
> the installer has to either ask the user to create tmpfs or make the 
> decision to do it on its own. As has been stated, this is fine if 
> sufficient RAM is available. Personally I don't like using RAM for
> tmp.

The only option for a genuinely ram-backed /tmp is something that you
should probably never use for anything, a malloc-backed md device using
wired kernel memory. If there is a good reason for that I can't think
of it, it keeps all files, even deleted ones, in memory even at the
expense of the processes that are accessing the files.   

The practical choices are tmpfs or (if you don't trust tmpfs) a
swap-backed md device.  Both of these use swap-backed storage via the
normal VM/Caching-system. tmpfs files tend to stay cached longer than
on a normal UFS partition (because there's no deadline for writing out
dirty pages) but that's generally what you want.

In my experience /tmpfs works well whether you have too little or too
much memory. I've been using it for building ports for a long time, and
it works fine even on ports that couldn't be built on ufs without swap
usage. 
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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-18 Thread Robert Bonomi

> From owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org  Sat Feb 18 01:59:53 2012
> From: Doug Hardie 
> Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2012 23:54:36 -0800
> To: Robert Bonomi 
> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: One or Four?
>
>
> On 17 February 2012, at 23:21, Robert Bonomi wrote:
>
> >> From owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org  Fri Feb 17 19:56:00 2012
> >> From: Doug Hardie 
> >> Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:50:44 -0800
> >> To: FreeBSD Mailing List 
> >> Subject: Re: One or Four?
> >> 
> >> 
> >> On Feb 17, 2012, at 2:05 PM, Robison, Dave wrote:
> >>> We'd like a show of hands to see if folks prefer the "old" style default 
> >>> with 4 partitions and swap, or the newer iteration with 1 partition and 
> >>> swap.
> >> 
> >> 
> >> I only run servers and set them up with /, /usr, and swap.  Other 
> >> partitions 
> >> are placed on other disks with typically one partition per disk.  I link 
> >> /var
> >> and /tmp into /usr.
> > 
> > That last is a *BAD*IDEA*(tm).  There _are_ programs that assume that 
> > /var/tmp
> > and /usr/tmp are *different* places -- and will attempt to create 
> > 'distinct' 
> > files _with_the_same_name_ in the two diretories.
>
> I am sure you can find programs that presume anything you want.  I have never 
> seen one that does that. If I did find one, it would be easy to correct that 
> misguided thinking.

"Those who are unwilling to learn from history are doomed to repeat it" applies.

I state as a fact that I have been called in -- *more*than*once* --  to attempt
to recover data that had been trashed as a result of what was eventually
determined to be that specific issue. 

As for your claim of it being 'easy to correct that misguided thinking' -- that
is an outright lie, when one is dealing with COTS software for which one does 
not have the source-code.  There is also the 'minor' matter of establishing 
that 'that' -was- the cause of the problems.


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Re: /usr/home vs /home (was: Re: One or Four?)

Hi,

On Saturday 18 February 2012 13:05:49 Lars Eighner wrote:
> On Fri, 17 Feb 2012, Daniel Staal wrote:
> 
> > I've never seen anything listing the main reasons for having /home under 
> > /usr 
> > though.  I figure there must be a decent reason why.  Would anyone care to 
> > enlighten me?  What are the perceived advantages?  (Particularly if you 
> > then 
> > make a symlink to /home.)
> 
> There may have been a historic reason, but now it is philosophical - trying

when I got my hands for the first time on a BSD system, the machine has had 
several 5MB hard disks.

I assume that what now is called partitioning came from the need to have 
several disks to run a serious system.

And yes, it was possible to boot and run BSD with at least 20 users on several 
5MB disks.

Erich
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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-18 Thread Damien Fleuriot



On 2/17/12 11:40 PM, Maxim Khitrov wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 5:05 PM, Robison, Dave
>  wrote:
>> Hiya,
>>
>> A question has arisen with the implementation of bsdinstall in 9.x as
>> opposed to sysinstall in 8.x and previous versions of FreeBSD.
>>
>> It has always been FreeBSD's default to create four partitions and swap as
>> such:
>>
>> /
>> /tmp
>> /var
>> /usr
>> swap
>>
>> The recent changes in 9.x with bsdinstall use a default behavior which
>> creates only one partition and swap, with everything living under a single
>> "/" partition as such:
>>
>> /
>> swap
>>
>> We'd like a show of hands to see if folks prefer the "old" style default
>> with 4 partitions and swap, or the newer iteration with 1 partition and
>> swap.
>>
>> This is not a discussion of MBR vs GPT. The default moving forward from 9.x
>> will be to use GPT.
>>
>> We realize that one can use bsdinstall to create as many partitions as one
>> wants. However, the new default is for one partition and swap. We want to
>> know if people would prefer the older style default with four partitions and
>> swap when selecting "Guided Partitioning" and "Use Entire Disk".
>>
>> Let the majority decide which layout is preferred for the default.
> 
> / and /usr should be merged together, /var should stay separate, and
> /tmp should be tmpfs :)
> 

On topic, have the bugs been fixed where a tmpfs partition would
gradually lose usable size, down to 0kb eventually ?
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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-18 Thread Damien Fleuriot

On 2/17/12 11:05 PM, Robison, Dave wrote:
> Hiya,
[snip]
> We realize that one can use bsdinstall to create as many partitions as
> one wants. However, the new default is for one partition and swap. We
> want to know if people would prefer the older style default with four
> partitions and swap when selecting "Guided Partitioning" and "Use Entire
> Disk".
> 
> Let the majority decide which layout is preferred for the default.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Dave
> 

Seeing as people using the default are likely to be novices, I vote in
favor of ONE.

The reasoning being that novices are less likely to be able to correctly
size their /usr and /var than a seasoned sysadmin.
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Re: /usr/home vs /home (was: Re: One or Four?)

2012-02-18 Thread Polytropon

On Sat, 18 Feb 2012 00:05:49 -0600 (CST), Lars Eighner wrote:
> It seems to me that partition and mount point are being confused to a
> degree.  There is no reason what is mounted at /usr/home cannot be a
> separate partition as well as if it were mounted at root. 

I thought of this fact as such an obvious thing that I
didn't bother even mentioning it. :-)

Of course, /usr/home can be a separate partition (even on
a separate disk), just like /usr/ports or /usr/obj or even
/usr/local could be. I've also seen systems having several
subtrees in /export, each one being on an individual partition,
some of them even on an own disk.

> There are some
> good reasons for the user directories (and perhaps some other data) to be on
> a separate partition - mostly the reasons relate to ease of back up and
> migration whether planned or emergency.  Arguments about where to mount that
> partition are not so practical, being more in the philosophic and historical
> realm. Pick one, recognize not everyone will be on the same page and put
> appropriate links in.

I'd still be interested in why this particular location has
been chosen. The typical access path for home directories
is /home (that's why the symlink), and as long as this
"top level entry" points to the proper data (no matter where
they are located), it should be fine.

> There may have been a historic reason, but now it is philosophical - trying
> to keep the system and userland distinction clear.  But there are many flaws
> in the attempted separation. /var for example is the default location for
> many logs, both system and user, the spools (remember news?), and databases.
> You really cannot drop /usr into a different system and have an operational
> result.

Correct. Also see the difference in usage interpretation for
/tmp (not guaranteed to be present after reboot) and /var/tmp
(should be present in the same state after reboot).

The separation of concepts FreeBSD is famous for basically is
"the OS" (primarily /, /etc, /(s)bin, /usr/(s)bin) that provides
the minimal functionality to bring up the operating system even
in worst case, where only the root partition needs to be mounted,
which can be done in read-only mode, to finally reach the single-
user mode, and "3rd party applications" (everything in /usr/local).
However, both system and 3rd party programs access things in /var
or /tmp. Not having actual _user_ data in between can be a benefit
especially when something goes wrong.

> (I put the home directories, the www directory, databases and spools all on
> the same physical partition which I mount arbitrarily at /usr/local/data. It
> isn't exactly plug-n-play, but in tests and emergencies is has proved
> practical to drop the partition into several linices with a high level of
> functionally  - depending on application versioning being close to in sync.)

And I assume you still have /home pointing to the correct location
on that "new" path?

-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-18 Thread Matthew Seaman

On 17/02/2012 22:17, Chuck Swiger wrote:
> On Feb 17, 2012, at 2:05 PM, Robison, Dave wrote:
>>> We'd like a show of hands to see if folks prefer the "old" style
>>> default with 4 partitions and swap, or the newer iteration with 1
>>> partition and swap.

> For a user/desktop machine, I prefer one root partition.  For other
> roles like a server, I prefer multiple partitions which have been
> sized for the intended usage.

I thought the installer switched to the one-partition style based on
disk size?  Whatever.  Personally I much prefer using one big partition,
even for servers -- this applies to /, /usr, /usr/local, /var --
standard OS level bits, and not to application specific bits like
partitions dedicated to RDBMS data areas (particularly if the
application needs to write a lot of data).  Having /tmp on a separate
memory backed fiesystem is important though: if sshd can't create its
socket there, then you won't be able to login remotely and fix things.

The reasoning is simple: running out of space in any partition requires
expensive sys-admin intervention to fix.  The root partition has
historically been a particular problem in this regard.   Even if it is
just log files filling up /var -- sure you can just remove some files,
but why would you keep the logs in the first place if they weren't
important?  Splitting space up into many small pieces means each piece
has limited headroom in which to expand.  Having effectively one common
chunk of free space makes that scenario much less likely[*].

Yes, in principle you can fill up the entire disk like this.  However,
firstly, on FreeBSD that doesn't actually tend to kill the server
entirely, unless the workload is write-heavy (but see the caveat above
about application specific partitions) and the system will generally
carry on perfectly happily if you can get rid of some files and create
space.  [Note: this is not true of most OSes -- FreeBSD is particularly
good in this regard.]  Secondly, typical server grade hardware will have
something like 80--120GB for system drives nowadays.  FreeBSD + a
selection of server applications takes under 5GB.   Even allowing for a
pretty large load of application data, you're going to have tens of Gb
of free space there.  Generally your monitoring is going to flag that
the disk is filling up well before the space does run out.  Yes, I know
there are disaster scenarios where the disk fills up in minutes; you're
screwed whatever partitioning scheme you use in those cases, just a few
seconds slower than in the multiple partitions case.

Cheers

Matthew

[*] Mostly I prefer ZFS nowadays, which renders this whole argument
moot, as having one common pool of free space is exactly how ZFS works.

-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.   7 Priory Courtyard
  Flat 3
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey Ramsgate
JID: matt...@infracaninophile.co.uk   Kent, CT11 9PW

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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-17 Thread Doug Hardie


On 17 February 2012, at 23:21, Robert Bonomi wrote:

>> From owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org  Fri Feb 17 19:56:00 2012
>> From: Doug Hardie 
>> Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:50:44 -0800
>> To: FreeBSD Mailing List 
>> Subject: Re: One or Four?
>> 
>> 
>> On Feb 17, 2012, at 2:05 PM, Robison, Dave wrote:
>>> We'd like a show of hands to see if folks prefer the "old" style default 
>>> with 4 partitions and swap, or the newer iteration with 1 partition and 
>>> swap.
>> 
>> 
>> I only run servers and set them up with /, /usr, and swap.  Other partitions 
>> are placed on other disks with typically one partition per disk.  I link /var
>> and /tmp into /usr.
> 
> That last is a *BAD*IDEA*(tm).  There _are_ programs that assume that /var/tmp
> and /usr/tme are *different* places -- and will attempt to create 'distinct' 
> files _with_the_same_name_ in the two diretories.

I am sure you can find programs that presume anything you want.  I have never 
seen one that does that. If I did find one, it would be easy to correct that 
misguided thinking.

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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-17 Thread Robert Bonomi

> From owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org  Fri Feb 17 19:56:00 2012
> From: Doug Hardie 
> Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2012 17:50:44 -0800
> To: FreeBSD Mailing List 
> Subject: Re: One or Four?
>
>
> On Feb 17, 2012, at 2:05 PM, Robison, Dave wrote:
> > We'd like a show of hands to see if folks prefer the "old" style default 
> > with 4 partitions and swap, or the newer iteration with 1 partition and 
> > swap.
>
>
> I only run servers and set them up with /, /usr, and swap.  Other partitions 
> are placed on other disks with typically one partition per disk.  I link /var
> and /tmp into /usr.

That last is a *BAD*IDEA*(tm).  There _are_ programs that assume that /var/tmp
and /usr/tme are *different* places -- and will attempt to create 'distinct' 
files _with_the_same_name_ in the two diretories.

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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-17 Thread Robert Bonomi

> From owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org  Fri Feb 17 16:20:48 2012
> Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:05:23 -0800
> From: "Robison, Dave" 
> To: 
> Subject: One or Four?
>
> Hiya,
>
> A question has arisen with the implementation of bsdinstall in 9.x as 
> opposed to sysinstall in 8.x and previous versions of FreeBSD.
>
> It has always been FreeBSD's default to create four partitions and swap 
> as such:
>
> /
> /tmp
> /var
> /usr
> swap
>
> The recent changes in 9.x with bsdinstall use a default behavior which 
> creates only one partition and swap, with everything living under a 
> single "/" partition as such:
>
> /
> swap

Blame the Linux community for fostering _that_ silliness.   

> We'd like a show of hands to see if folks prefer the "old" style default 
> with 4 partitions and swap, or the newer iteration with 1 partition and 
> swap.

*I* would stronngly prefer _five_ partitions plus swap;

  /
  /tmp
  /var
  /usr
  /home
  swap

There are good arguments to be made for keeping the '/' filesystem as small 
as practical, _and_ restricting it to 'system' content -- preferably all
"non-volatile" such that it (as well as '/usr') can be mounted read-only.

The above-mentioned RO mounting does wonders for system reliability and 
speed of crash recovery.


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Re: /usr/home vs /home (was: Re: One or Four?)

2012-02-17 Thread Lars Eighner


On Fri, 17 Feb 2012, Daniel Staal wrote:

--As of February 17, 2012 11:46:23 PM +0100, Polytropon is alleged to have 
said:



Well, to be honest, I never liked the "old style" default
with /home being part of /usr. As I mentioned before, _my_
default style for separated partitions include:

/
swap
/tmp
/var
/usr
/home

In special cases, add /opt or /scratch as separate partitions
with intendedly limited sizes.

You can see that all user data is kept independently from
the rest of the system. It can easily be switched over to
a separate "home disk" if needed.


--As for the rest, it is mine.

I'm in agreement with you on that I like to have /home be a separate 
partition, and not under /usr.


It seems to me that partition and mount point are being confused to a
degree.  There is no reason what is mounted at /usr/home cannot be a
separate partition as well as if it were mounted at root.  There are some
good reasons for the user directories (and perhaps some other data) to be on
a separate partition - mostly the reasons relate to ease of back up and
migration whether planned or emergency.  Arguments about where to mount that
partition are not so practical, being more in the philosophic and historical
realm. Pick one, recognize not everyone will be on the same page and put
appropriate links in.

(Of course, my current zfs system has 40 
partitions...)  Partly though I recognize that I like it because that's what 
I'm used to, and how I learned to set it up originally.  (My first unix 
experience was with OpenBSD, over 10 years ago now.)


I've never seen anything listing the main reasons for having /home under /usr 
though.  I figure there must be a decent reason why.  Would anyone care to 
enlighten me?  What are the perceived advantages?  (Particularly if you then 
make a symlink to /home.)


There may have been a historic reason, but now it is philosophical - trying
to keep the system and userland distinction clear.  But there are many flaws
in the attempted separation. /var for example is the default location for
many logs, both system and user, the spools (remember news?), and databases.
You really cannot drop /usr into a different system and have an operational
result.

(I put the home directories, the www directory, databases and spools all on
the same physical partition which I mount arbitrarily at /usr/local/data. It
isn't exactly plug-n-play, but in tests and emergencies is has proved
practical to drop the partition into several linices with a high level of
functionally  - depending on application versioning being close to in sync.)


--
Lars Eighner
http://www.larseighner.com/index.html
8800 N IH35 APT 1191 AUSTIN TX 78753-5266

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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-17 Thread Leslie Jensen




2012-02-17 23:46, Polytropon skrev:

Four? There should be five! :-)

Read on to find out why.



On Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:05:23 -0800, Robison, Dave wrote:

We'd like a show of hands to see if folks prefer the "old" style default
with 4 partitions and swap, or the newer iteration with 1 partition and
swap.


In my case, preference depends on use. When I'm unable to
predict how partition occupation will develop, going with
one / partition is a good approach. It can also be useful
for cases like home desktops.

Other cases, like dedicated servers or systems that use
more than one physical disk (e. g. one system disk, one
home disk) the approach of using more than one partition
is welcome.

I'd like to mention that using different partitions for
a logical separation of mechanisms and functionalities
can be a _big_ help in worst case (which you'll hopefully
never will encounter, but be prepared). For example, if
you have file system trouble with the /home partition,
you can bring the system up in a limited state (SUM),
make the partition "ro" and get the data. You can then
boot the system into the normal state (MUM) with using
the copy you made, leaving the original /home partition
unmounted and untouched. In case of data recovery and
forensic analysis this can be your chance to get your
data back.




We realize that one can use bsdinstall to create as many partitions as
one wants. However, the new default is for one partition and swap. We
want to know if people would prefer the older style default with four
partitions and swap when selecting "Guided Partitioning" and "Use Entire
Disk".


Well, to be honest, I never liked the "old style" default
with /home being part of /usr. As I mentioned before, _my_
default style for separated partitions include:

/
swap
/tmp
/var
/usr
/home

In special cases, add /opt or /scratch as separate partitions
with intendedly limited sizes.

You can see that all user data is kept independently from
the rest of the system. It can easily be switched over to
a separate "home disk" if needed.

What's the reason for this? Limited partitions are often
considered a problem, but they can be a system's life saver.
Just imagine you have all functional parts of the system in
one big / tree, let's also say /tmp is writable for users
(and it's not a memory file system); now a maliciously acting
user or program could fill /tmp with lots of data, occupying
the full disk. Soon, /var/log cannot be written anymore, and
also other processes that need to write something may get
into trouble. If /tmp is a separate partition, only /tmp can
get "out of disk space", with /var being fully untouched.

Also keep in mind that some tools like to operate on partition
level, such as dump (and restore). System tools like quota can
also be used on a partition level. As I mentioned before, being
able to mount a partition read-only can be helpful sometimes,
same goes for other mount options, such as noexec or noatime.
When dealing with this low level stuff is neccessary (e. g. on
embedded systems or systems that are low on resources where you
need to squeeze every bit of performance by fine tuning), having
individual partitions can be a big help.




Let the majority decide which layout is preferred for the default.


Why not add a selection to the installer, something like
this:

Partition scheme


[ ] all in one + swap
Create one partition containing all subtrees
plus one swap partition.

[ ] separate partitioning + swap
Create /, /var, /tmp and /usr (including home)
partitions plus one swap partition.

[ ] user-defined
Make your own partitioning selection manually.

Of course, the default SIZES for second choice should be
reasonable.






This suggestion gets my wote

/L
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/usr/home vs /home (was: Re: One or Four?)

2012-02-17 Thread Daniel Staal

--As of February 17, 2012 11:46:23 PM +0100, Polytropon is alleged to have 
said:



Well, to be honest, I never liked the "old style" default
with /home being part of /usr. As I mentioned before, _my_
default style for separated partitions include:

/
swap
/tmp
/var
/usr
/home

In special cases, add /opt or /scratch as separate partitions
with intendedly limited sizes.

You can see that all user data is kept independently from
the rest of the system. It can easily be switched over to
a separate "home disk" if needed.


--As for the rest, it is mine.

I'm in agreement with you on that I like to have /home be a separate 
partition, and not under /usr.  (Of course, my current zfs system has 40 
partitions...)  Partly though I recognize that I like it because that's 
what I'm used to, and how I learned to set it up originally.  (My first 
unix experience was with OpenBSD, over 10 years ago now.)


I've never seen anything listing the main reasons for having /home under 
/usr though.  I figure there must be a decent reason why.  Would anyone 
care to enlighten me?  What are the perceived advantages?  (Particularly if 
you then make a symlink to /home.)


Just a question that's been bugging me, as I read through different FreeBSD 
docs.


Daniel T. Staal

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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-17 Thread Erich Dollansky

Hi,

On Saturday 18 February 2012 05:05:23 Robison, Dave wrote:
> 
> It has always been FreeBSD's default to create four partitions and swap 
> as such:
> 
> /
> /tmp
> /var
> /usr
> swap
> 
it really makes sense to keep it this way.

> The recent changes in 9.x with bsdinstall use a default behavior which 
> creates only one partition and swap, with everything living under a 
> single "/" partition as such:
> 
> /
> swap

Can you offer an option for beginners to get this schema installed?

I have had bad experiences with Windows running all on a single partition 
including swap.

FreeBSD always reboots no matter how screwed the /usr file system got. It does 
not matter if it is just full or damages for some other reason. At the least 
the machine is up and running and it is possible to fix the damaged partition.

How should it be possible to mount root as read only if root contains /usr?

I think that there are many more reasons why at least / has to stay separated 
from /usr. 
> 
> Let the majority decide which layout is preferred for the default.

When will the result be published?

Erich
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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-17 Thread Doug Hardie

On Feb 17, 2012, at 2:05 PM, Robison, Dave wrote:
> We'd like a show of hands to see if folks prefer the "old" style default with 
> 4 partitions and swap, or the newer iteration with 1 partition and swap.

I only run servers and set them up with /, /usr, and swap.  Other partitions 
are placed on other disks with typically one partition per disk.  I link /var 
and /tmp into /usr.

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Re: One or Four?


On 02/18/12 11:17, David Brodbeck wrote:

On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 3:49 PM, Chris Hill  wrote:

Why not add a selection to the installer, something like
this:

Partition scheme


[ ] all in one + swap
Create one partition containing all subtrees
plus one swap partition.

[ ] separate partitioning + swap
Create /, /var, /tmp and /usr (including home)
partitions plus one swap partition.

[ ] user-defined
Make your own partitioning selection manually.

Of course, the default SIZES for second choice should be
reasonable.


I like it. This, or something very similar, seems to me like the best way to
go.

I am not a professional sysadmin, but have been using FreeBSD since 2.2.6.
FWIW, I prefer the multi-partition approach for all the reasons already
mentioned.

I used to...I found it tended to result in more administration load
later, though, because the automated installer's (or my own!) guesses
for partition size are rarely entirely adequate.  Then you end up
slapping in another disk, backing up and repartitioning, or
maintaining a symlink farm...

The default 512 MB root partition was always a particular pain point.
It's completely inadequate if you ever try to build a custom kernel
and want the option of falling back to the old one.  It makes
distribution upgrades nearly impossible.
This has been fixed for some time now. The default for / (specifically 
to fit 2 kernels and some) is now 1G. /var is now 4G.


Nowadays I tend to either use one big root or just root and home for
desktops.  (having a separate home directory *is* nice for upgrades,
sometimes, but again you gotta guess right...)  For servers I will
additionally split off /var, to limit the damage if logging runs amok.


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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-17 Thread David Brodbeck

On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 3:49 PM, Chris Hill  wrote:
>> Why not add a selection to the installer, something like
>> this:
>>
>>        Partition scheme
>>        
>>
>>        [ ] all in one + swap
>>            Create one partition containing all subtrees
>>            plus one swap partition.
>>
>>        [ ] separate partitioning + swap
>>            Create /, /var, /tmp and /usr (including home)
>>            partitions plus one swap partition.
>>
>>        [ ] user-defined
>>            Make your own partitioning selection manually.
>>
>> Of course, the default SIZES for second choice should be
>> reasonable.
>
>
> I like it. This, or something very similar, seems to me like the best way to
> go.
>
> I am not a professional sysadmin, but have been using FreeBSD since 2.2.6.
> FWIW, I prefer the multi-partition approach for all the reasons already
> mentioned.

I used to...I found it tended to result in more administration load
later, though, because the automated installer's (or my own!) guesses
for partition size are rarely entirely adequate.  Then you end up
slapping in another disk, backing up and repartitioning, or
maintaining a symlink farm...

The default 512 MB root partition was always a particular pain point.
It's completely inadequate if you ever try to build a custom kernel
and want the option of falling back to the old one.  It makes
distribution upgrades nearly impossible.

Nowadays I tend to either use one big root or just root and home for
desktops.  (having a separate home directory *is* nice for upgrades,
sometimes, but again you gotta guess right...)  For servers I will
additionally split off /var, to limit the damage if logging runs amok.
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Re: One or Four?

On Feb 17, 2012, at 4:10 PM, Robison, Dave wrote:
> On 02/17/2012 15:55, Chuck Swiger wrote:
>> 
>> Yes.  It works as intended even when /tmp is part of a single root 
>> partition; although mounting /tmp as a RAM- or swap-based tmpfs filesystem 
>> might be better for many situations.
> 
> Sure it has its uses, but now you're jumping into new territory where the 
> installer has to either ask the user to create tmpfs or make the decision to 
> do it on its own.

That's right.  I don't advocate using tmpfs for /tmp under all circumstances, 
but it is a reasonable choice for some situations, and it would be nice if 
FreeBSD-9's shiny new installer provided am option to set that up.

> As has been stated, this is fine if sufficient RAM is available. Personally I 
> don't like using RAM for tmp.

OK.

>>> Making this world-writable bucket part of "/" seems silly both for Desktops 
>>> and Servers alike.
>> 
>> You're welcome to your opinion.  However, I suspect you're expecting FreeBSD 
>> systems to always be partitioned and administered by knowledgeable BSD Unix 
>> sysadmins, and those are not always so readily available as one might assume.
> 
> I'm not sure why someone has to be knowledgeable to select a particular 
> partitioning scheme.

Um, because a novice user just going with the default partitioning scheme 
(whatever that might be) or guessing random values isn't likely to achieve 
better results than someone knowledgeable making an informed decision about how 
to partition a disk?

> Is it better for a novice to have one big / to fill up as opposed to a 
> separate /var or /tmp?

That doesn't have a single, simple answer.

It may be better to have a single root partition, for which they can notice and 
understand their disk usage by a single value, compared to having them need to 
understand df and multiple filesystems mounted as a tree, rather than separate 
devices (aka Windows disk letters).  :-(

>>> b. A nuisance
>>> 
>>> As "Da Rock" points out, ... recovering your system from a
>>> file-system-full-event when using "single-/" is just as difficult 
>>> regardless of
>>> Desktop versus Server. Having "/tmp" alleviates the difficulty.
>> 
>> It would if /tmp was mounted on a disk partition, and if it also happened to 
>> be where space was being consumed.  /var/log and /home tend to be more 
>> likely locations in my experience, but YMMV.
> 
> Actually, in my experience I have huge problems with users misusing /tmp as a 
> holding spot for all manner of files. I like keeping /tmp separate and 
> smallish to discourage its use for everyday transfers. Those things belong in 
> a users home directory, not in /tmp.

It sounds like these users want some kind of shared folder with relatively open 
permissions, and I've seen plenty of small office / collaborative environments 
where such a thing would be of value.

>> However, for whatever reasons, the overwhelming majority of folks using 
>> MacOS X don't have problems using a single root partition, and while they 
>> sometimes do fill up their disks, that's a situation which they should be 
>> able to recover from without needing expert assistance.  I don't recall 
>> having unusual issues in running a partition out of space under FreeBSD, 
>> either, or difficulty fixing things afterwards-- but such doesn't happen 
>> very often if you monitor your systems properly, and have time to respond to 
>> "low-space" conditions before they turn into "out of space" conditions.
> 
> Previously you said that knowledgeable unix admins aren't as common as might 
> be thought... now you're making the assumption that these same novice users 
> will monitor their systems properly for low-space conditions.

Oh, no-- I don't assume that most users will notice and fix a "low-space" 
condition beforehand-- I was speaking of what I do, although it hopefully also 
describes other managed environments.

It doesn't describe what end-user support folks [1] generally have to deal with.

> However this is all superfluous conversation if the installer gives each user 
> a variety of options. You can select your "one big partition" scheme or go 
> with multiple partitions depending on your preference, and from what I've 
> read so far, this seems to be not only a reasonable idea, but also one which 
> many people would prefer.

Having the FreeBSD installer provide a reasonable set of options which include 
the traditional FreeBSD partition layout and a single root partition would 
likely be better than the current state.

Regards,
-- 
-Chuck

[1] Apple Retail calls them "geniuses"

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RE: One or Four?



> -Original Message-
> From: owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org [mailto:owner-freebsd-
> questi...@freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Da Rock
> Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 5:00 PM
> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: One or Four?
> 
> On 02/18/12 10:55, Da Rock wrote:
> > On 02/18/12 10:40, Chuck Swiger wrote:
> >> On Feb 17, 2012, at 4:11 PM, Devin Teske wrote:
> >>>> However, for whatever reasons, the overwhelming majority of folks
> >>>> using MacOS
> >>>> X don't have problems using a single root partition, and while they
> >>>> sometimes do
> >>>> fill up their disks, that's a situation which they should be able
> >>>> to recover from
> >>>> without needing expert assistance.  I don't recall having unusual
> >>>> issues in running
> >>>> a partition out of space under FreeBSD, either, or difficulty
> >>>> fixing things
> >>>> afterwards--
> >>> Recipe for disaster:
> >>>
> >>> 1. You have a cron-job that pulls down /etc/master.passwd daily
> >>> 2. Your cron-job also runs pwd_mkdb after "SUP"ing down
> >>> /etc/master.passwd
> >> Yes, I agree that this is a recipe for disaster; the reasons not very
> >> correlated to disk space, however.
> >>
> >> Even twenty years ago, handling this via YP/NIS or NetInfo would have
> >> made more sense, and nowadays folks would be far more likely to use
> >> LDAP as the network user database, instead of pushing system password
> >> database changes via SUP or similar replication mechanism locally to
> >> individual hosts.
> >>
> >>> 3. A program fills "/"
> >>> 4. cron fires
> >>> 5. pwd_mkdb can't generate databases because not enough room on
> >>> filesystem
> >>> 6. System can no longer be logged into
> >> #5 does not imply #6: if pwd_mkdb can't build a temporary version to
> >> /etc/pwd.db.tmp&  /etc/spwd.db.tmp, it will exit with an error rather
> >> than invoke rename(2) to replace the working version of the password
> >> database with something that might be broken.
> >>
> >> To be very specific, I would expect one to get:
> >>
> >> "/: write failed, filesystem is full
> >> pwd_mkdb: /etc/pwd.db to /etc/pwd.db.tmp: No space left on device"
> >>
> >>> 7. System is rebooted
> >>> 8. Can't log in (not even as root)
> >>> 9. Go into single-user mode
> >>> 10. No space to work in
> >>>
> >>> Sure... you can call it an "edge-case," but it's pretty common and
> >>> this is only
> >>> one of a myriad of ways we can reproduce the problem of filling-up
> >>> "/" to cause
> >>> major headaches.
> >>
> >> I've never heard of such a thing happening to a real FreeBSD system
> >> in the past decade or more.  The closest match to the issue results
> >> in a failure of adduser(8) or pw(8) to add new users, but existing
> >> users continued to work fine.
> > These are edge cases that _do_ happen - Linux (heaven forbid!) is
> > reknown for the all /, and I've been unable to boot properly into it
> > with a full disk. I had to use a live disk to rescue it which took
> > hours thanks to the $%^&! lvm filesystem.
> >
> > Its just so easy to run a multi partition as opposed to an all /. And
> > how much does it cost/hurt to do it (especially given the inordinately
> > large hdd's these days)? Next to nix (pardon the pun :) ). The
> > reduction in problems for new users should be an incentive as well.
> >
> > As for how quickly a disk can fill - I'm an expert :) I can fill a
> > terabyte disk in a matter of hours with video and not notice. The
> > transfers can be tricky to coordinate seeing as the disk fills faster
> > than I can move the large files to another filesystem.
> >
> > And I haven't even mentioned some of the games that I'm sure a novice
> > desktop user will use...
> >
> > You don't have to necessarily 'hose' the system to render it unusable.
> > Just have some obscure program or service that requires something like
> > a temp file or the like to stop it from working, and make it difficult
> > to find whats wrong.
> I forgot to mention that the probable reason you haven't heard of any
> such problems on real FreeBSD _is_

RE: One or Four?



> -Original Message-
> From: owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org [mailto:owner-freebsd-
> questi...@freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Da Rock
> Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 4:55 PM
> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: One or Four?
> 
> On 02/18/12 10:40, Chuck Swiger wrote:
> > On Feb 17, 2012, at 4:11 PM, Devin Teske wrote:
> >>> However, for whatever reasons, the overwhelming majority of folks using
> MacOS
> >>> X don't have problems using a single root partition, and while they
> sometimes do
> >>> fill up their disks, that's a situation which they should be able to
recover from
> >>> without needing expert assistance.  I don't recall having unusual issues
in
> running
> >>> a partition out of space under FreeBSD, either, or difficulty fixing
things
> >>> afterwards--
> >> Recipe for disaster:
> >>
> >> 1. You have a cron-job that pulls down /etc/master.passwd daily
> >> 2. Your cron-job also runs pwd_mkdb after "SUP"ing down
> /etc/master.passwd
> > Yes, I agree that this is a recipe for disaster; the reasons not very
correlated to
> disk space, however.
> >
> > Even twenty years ago, handling this via YP/NIS or NetInfo would have made
> more sense, and nowadays folks would be far more likely to use LDAP as the
> network user database, instead of pushing system password database changes
> via SUP or similar replication mechanism locally to individual hosts.
> >
> >> 3. A program fills "/"
> >> 4. cron fires
> >> 5. pwd_mkdb can't generate databases because not enough room on
> filesystem
> >> 6. System can no longer be logged into
> > #5 does not imply #6: if pwd_mkdb can't build a temporary version to
> /etc/pwd.db.tmp&  /etc/spwd.db.tmp, it will exit with an error rather than
> invoke rename(2) to replace the working version of the password database with
> something that might be broken.
> 
> >
> > To be very specific, I would expect one to get:
> >
> > "/: write failed, filesystem is full
> > pwd_mkdb: /etc/pwd.db to /etc/pwd.db.tmp: No space left on device"
> >
> >> 7. System is rebooted
> >> 8. Can't log in (not even as root)
> >> 9. Go into single-user mode
> >> 10. No space to work in
> >>
> >> Sure... you can call it an "edge-case," but it's pretty common and this is
only
> >> one of a myriad of ways we can reproduce the problem of filling-up "/" to
> cause
> >> major headaches.
> >
> > I've never heard of such a thing happening to a real FreeBSD system in the
past
> decade or more.  The closest match to the issue results in a failure of
adduser(8)
> or pw(8) to add new users, but existing users continued to work fine.
> These are edge cases that _do_ happen - Linux (heaven forbid!) is
> reknown for the all /, and I've been unable to boot properly into it
> with a full disk. I had to use a live disk to rescue it which took hours
> thanks to the $%^&! lvm filesystem.
> 
> Its just so easy to run a multi partition as opposed to an all /. And
> how much does it cost/hurt to do it (especially given the inordinately
> large hdd's these days)? Next to nix (pardon the pun :) ). The reduction
> in problems for new users should be an incentive as well.
> 

+1

I imagine an increased load on -questions@ for users that need extra
hand-holding when they fill their entire disks versus incidentally filling a
single partition. One requires instructions involving a live disc versus the
latter which involves dinking with a still-very-usable system. Time-to-recover
is inordinately skewed between the two situations, IMHO
-- 
Devin

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Re: One or Four?


On 02/18/12 10:55, Da Rock wrote:

On 02/18/12 10:40, Chuck Swiger wrote:

On Feb 17, 2012, at 4:11 PM, Devin Teske wrote:
However, for whatever reasons, the overwhelming majority of folks 
using MacOS
X don't have problems using a single root partition, and while they 
sometimes do
fill up their disks, that's a situation which they should be able 
to recover from
without needing expert assistance.  I don't recall having unusual 
issues in running
a partition out of space under FreeBSD, either, or difficulty 
fixing things

afterwards--

Recipe for disaster:

1. You have a cron-job that pulls down /etc/master.passwd daily
2. Your cron-job also runs pwd_mkdb after "SUP"ing down 
/etc/master.passwd
Yes, I agree that this is a recipe for disaster; the reasons not very 
correlated to disk space, however.


Even twenty years ago, handling this via YP/NIS or NetInfo would have 
made more sense, and nowadays folks would be far more likely to use 
LDAP as the network user database, instead of pushing system password 
database changes via SUP or similar replication mechanism locally to 
individual hosts.



3. A program fills "/"
4. cron fires
5. pwd_mkdb can't generate databases because not enough room on 
filesystem

6. System can no longer be logged into
#5 does not imply #6: if pwd_mkdb can't build a temporary version to 
/etc/pwd.db.tmp&  /etc/spwd.db.tmp, it will exit with an error rather 
than invoke rename(2) to replace the working version of the password 
database with something that might be broken.


To be very specific, I would expect one to get:

"/: write failed, filesystem is full
pwd_mkdb: /etc/pwd.db to /etc/pwd.db.tmp: No space left on device"


7. System is rebooted
8. Can't log in (not even as root)
9. Go into single-user mode
10. No space to work in

Sure... you can call it an "edge-case," but it's pretty common and 
this is only
one of a myriad of ways we can reproduce the problem of filling-up 
"/" to cause

major headaches.


I've never heard of such a thing happening to a real FreeBSD system 
in the past decade or more.  The closest match to the issue results 
in a failure of adduser(8) or pw(8) to add new users, but existing 
users continued to work fine.
These are edge cases that _do_ happen - Linux (heaven forbid!) is 
reknown for the all /, and I've been unable to boot properly into it 
with a full disk. I had to use a live disk to rescue it which took 
hours thanks to the $%^&! lvm filesystem.


Its just so easy to run a multi partition as opposed to an all /. And 
how much does it cost/hurt to do it (especially given the inordinately 
large hdd's these days)? Next to nix (pardon the pun :) ). The 
reduction in problems for new users should be an incentive as well.


As for how quickly a disk can fill - I'm an expert :) I can fill a 
terabyte disk in a matter of hours with video and not notice. The 
transfers can be tricky to coordinate seeing as the disk fills faster 
than I can move the large files to another filesystem.


And I haven't even mentioned some of the games that I'm sure a novice 
desktop user will use...


You don't have to necessarily 'hose' the system to render it unusable. 
Just have some obscure program or service that requires something like 
a temp file or the like to stop it from working, and make it difficult 
to find whats wrong.
I forgot to mention that the probable reason you haven't heard of any 
such problems on real FreeBSD _is_ because it doesn't use the all /, or 
a qualified sysadmin is watching over it.

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Re: One or Four?


On 02/18/12 10:40, Chuck Swiger wrote:

On Feb 17, 2012, at 4:11 PM, Devin Teske wrote:

However, for whatever reasons, the overwhelming majority of folks using MacOS
X don't have problems using a single root partition, and while they sometimes do
fill up their disks, that's a situation which they should be able to recover 
from
without needing expert assistance.  I don't recall having unusual issues in 
running
a partition out of space under FreeBSD, either, or difficulty fixing things
afterwards--

Recipe for disaster:

1. You have a cron-job that pulls down /etc/master.passwd daily
2. Your cron-job also runs pwd_mkdb after "SUP"ing down /etc/master.passwd

Yes, I agree that this is a recipe for disaster; the reasons not very 
correlated to disk space, however.

Even twenty years ago, handling this via YP/NIS or NetInfo would have made more 
sense, and nowadays folks would be far more likely to use LDAP as the network 
user database, instead of pushing system password database changes via SUP or 
similar replication mechanism locally to individual hosts.


3. A program fills "/"
4. cron fires
5. pwd_mkdb can't generate databases because not enough room on filesystem
6. System can no longer be logged into

#5 does not imply #6: if pwd_mkdb can't build a temporary version to 
/etc/pwd.db.tmp&  /etc/spwd.db.tmp, it will exit with an error rather than 
invoke rename(2) to replace the working version of the password database with 
something that might be broken.

To be very specific, I would expect one to get:

"/: write failed, filesystem is full
pwd_mkdb: /etc/pwd.db to /etc/pwd.db.tmp: No space left on device"


7. System is rebooted
8. Can't log in (not even as root)
9. Go into single-user mode
10. No space to work in

Sure... you can call it an "edge-case," but it's pretty common and this is only
one of a myriad of ways we can reproduce the problem of filling-up "/" to cause
major headaches.


I've never heard of such a thing happening to a real FreeBSD system in the past 
decade or more.  The closest match to the issue results in a failure of 
adduser(8) or pw(8) to add new users, but existing users continued to work fine.
These are edge cases that _do_ happen - Linux (heaven forbid!) is 
reknown for the all /, and I've been unable to boot properly into it 
with a full disk. I had to use a live disk to rescue it which took hours 
thanks to the $%^&! lvm filesystem.


Its just so easy to run a multi partition as opposed to an all /. And 
how much does it cost/hurt to do it (especially given the inordinately 
large hdd's these days)? Next to nix (pardon the pun :) ). The reduction 
in problems for new users should be an incentive as well.


As for how quickly a disk can fill - I'm an expert :) I can fill a 
terabyte disk in a matter of hours with video and not notice. The 
transfers can be tricky to coordinate seeing as the disk fills faster 
than I can move the large files to another filesystem.


And I haven't even mentioned some of the games that I'm sure a novice 
desktop user will use...


You don't have to necessarily 'hose' the system to render it unusable. 
Just have some obscure program or service that requires something like a 
temp file or the like to stop it from working, and make it difficult to 
find whats wrong.

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RE: One or Four?



> -Original Message-
> From: Chuck Swiger [mailto:cswi...@mac.com]
> Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 4:41 PM
> To: Devin Teske
> Cc: 'FreeBSD -'
> Subject: Re: One or Four?
> 
> On Feb 17, 2012, at 4:11 PM, Devin Teske wrote:
> >> However, for whatever reasons, the overwhelming majority of folks using
> MacOS
> >> X don't have problems using a single root partition, and while they
sometimes
> do
> >> fill up their disks, that's a situation which they should be able to
recover from
> >> without needing expert assistance.  I don't recall having unusual issues in
> running
> >> a partition out of space under FreeBSD, either, or difficulty fixing things
> >> afterwards--
> >
> > Recipe for disaster:
> >
> > 1. You have a cron-job that pulls down /etc/master.passwd daily
> > 2. Your cron-job also runs pwd_mkdb after "SUP"ing down /etc/master.passwd
> 
> Yes, I agree that this is a recipe for disaster; the reasons not very
correlated to
> disk space, however.
> 
> Even twenty years ago, handling this via YP/NIS or NetInfo would have made
> more sense, and nowadays folks would be far more likely to use LDAP as the
> network user database, instead of pushing system password database changes
> via SUP or similar replication mechanism locally to individual hosts.
> 
> > 3. A program fills "/"
> > 4. cron fires
> > 5. pwd_mkdb can't generate databases because not enough room on
> filesystem
> > 6. System can no longer be logged into
> 
> #5 does not imply #6: if pwd_mkdb can't build a temporary version to
> /etc/pwd.db.tmp & /etc/spwd.db.tmp, it will exit with an error rather than
> invoke rename(2) to replace the working version of the password database with
> something that might be broken.
> 

Ok, then this is a departure from versions of yester-year. Glad to know that a
temporary DB is built rather than rebuilding on-top of the existing DB (which
last I checked 4.11 still does).


> To be very specific, I would expect one to get:
> 
> "/: write failed, filesystem is full
> pwd_mkdb: /etc/pwd.db to /etc/pwd.db.tmp: No space left on device"
> 

Yeah, 4.11 wasn't so nice.


> > 7. System is rebooted
> > 8. Can't log in (not even as root)
> > 9. Go into single-user mode
> > 10. No space to work in
> >
> > Sure... you can call it an "edge-case," but it's pretty common and this is
only
> > one of a myriad of ways we can reproduce the problem of filling-up "/" to
cause
> > major headaches.
> 
> 
> I've never heard of such a thing happening to a real FreeBSD system in the
past
> decade or more.

Only only needs to go back to 4.11 for this time-bomb (which still bites us at
least once every 6-12 months in production -- mind you we still employ about
3,000 4.x systems and are migrating to 8.x this year).
-- 
Devin

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Re: One or Four?

On Feb 17, 2012, at 4:11 PM, Devin Teske wrote:
>> However, for whatever reasons, the overwhelming majority of folks using MacOS
>> X don't have problems using a single root partition, and while they 
>> sometimes do
>> fill up their disks, that's a situation which they should be able to recover 
>> from
>> without needing expert assistance.  I don't recall having unusual issues in 
>> running
>> a partition out of space under FreeBSD, either, or difficulty fixing things
>> afterwards--
> 
> Recipe for disaster:
> 
> 1. You have a cron-job that pulls down /etc/master.passwd daily
> 2. Your cron-job also runs pwd_mkdb after "SUP"ing down /etc/master.passwd

Yes, I agree that this is a recipe for disaster; the reasons not very 
correlated to disk space, however.

Even twenty years ago, handling this via YP/NIS or NetInfo would have made more 
sense, and nowadays folks would be far more likely to use LDAP as the network 
user database, instead of pushing system password database changes via SUP or 
similar replication mechanism locally to individual hosts.

> 3. A program fills "/"
> 4. cron fires
> 5. pwd_mkdb can't generate databases because not enough room on filesystem
> 6. System can no longer be logged into

#5 does not imply #6: if pwd_mkdb can't build a temporary version to 
/etc/pwd.db.tmp & /etc/spwd.db.tmp, it will exit with an error rather than 
invoke rename(2) to replace the working version of the password database with 
something that might be broken.

To be very specific, I would expect one to get:

"/: write failed, filesystem is full
pwd_mkdb: /etc/pwd.db to /etc/pwd.db.tmp: No space left on device"

> 7. System is rebooted
> 8. Can't log in (not even as root)
> 9. Go into single-user mode
> 10. No space to work in
> 
> Sure... you can call it an "edge-case," but it's pretty common and this is 
> only
> one of a myriad of ways we can reproduce the problem of filling-up "/" to 
> cause
> major headaches.

I've never heard of such a thing happening to a real FreeBSD system in the past 
decade or more.  The closest match to the issue results in a failure of 
adduser(8) or pw(8) to add new users, but existing users continued to work fine.

Regards,
-- 
-Chuck

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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-17 Thread Chris Hill


On Fri, 17 Feb 2012, Polytropon wrote:


Why not add a selection to the installer, something like
this:

Partition scheme


[ ] all in one + swap
Create one partition containing all subtrees
plus one swap partition.

[ ] separate partitioning + swap
Create /, /var, /tmp and /usr (including home)
partitions plus one swap partition.

[ ] user-defined
Make your own partitioning selection manually.

Of course, the default SIZES for second choice should be
reasonable.


I like it. This, or something very similar, seems to me like the best 
way to go.


I am not a professional sysadmin, but have been using FreeBSD since 
2.2.6. FWIW, I prefer the multi-partition approach for all the reasons 
already mentioned.



--
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** [ Busy Expunging  ]
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RE: One or Four?

> -Original Message-
> From: Chuck Swiger [mailto:cswi...@mac.com]
> Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 3:56 PM
> To: Devin Teske
> Cc: FreeBSD -
> Subject: Re: One or Four?
> 
> On Feb 17, 2012, at 3:11 PM, Devin Teske wrote:
> 

[snip]

> > I'd argue that there should never be a single-"/" unless you are prepared to
> > deal with a truly 100%-full filesystem problem (especially considering that
> > Desktop users whom select the default-everything are often not skilled
enough
> to
> > deal with that situation). If someone truly wants a single "/" and nothing
else,
> > there's manual partitioning (which should prove pretty easy in the event
that
> > you're only creating one partition and nothing else).
> 
> 
> More sophisticated partition schemes certainly can have value in terms of
better
> isolation from unexpected logfile growth (etc), a separation of OS-provided
files
> from user content, a separation of stuff which doesn't change often versus
stuff
> that does, and so forth.
> 
> However, for whatever reasons, the overwhelming majority of folks using MacOS
> X don't have problems using a single root partition, and while they sometimes
do
> fill up their disks, that's a situation which they should be able to recover
from
> without needing expert assistance.  I don't recall having unusual issues in
running
> a partition out of space under FreeBSD, either, or difficulty fixing things
> afterwards--

Recipe for disaster:

1. You have a cron-job that pulls down /etc/master.passwd daily
2. Your cron-job also runs pwd_mkdb after "SUP"ing down /etc/master.passwd
3. A program fills "/"
4. cron fires
5. pwd_mkdb can't generate databases because not enough room on filesystem
6. System can no longer be logged into
7. System is rebooted
8. Can't log in (not even as root)
9. Go into single-user mode
10. No space to work in

Sure... you can call it an "edge-case," but it's pretty common and this is only
one of a myriad of ways we can reproduce the problem of filling-up "/" to cause
major headaches.

For example, let's say you don't have a cron-job that runs pwd_mkdb etc. Let's
say you're just blissfully unaware of your disk space (or lack thereof) and you
execute "vipw". Exiting the program after making changes invokes pwd_mkdb and if
there isn't enough disk space to accommodate the database, you're hosed.
-- 
Devin

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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-17 Thread Robison, Dave

On 02/17/2012 15:55, Chuck Swiger wrote:

Yes. It works as intended even when /tmp is part of a single root partition;
although mounting /tmp as a RAM- or swap-based tmpfs filesystem might be better
for many situations.

Sure it has its uses, but now you're jumping into new territory where
the installer has to either ask the user to create tmpfs or make the
decision to do it on its own. As has been stated, this is fine if
sufficient RAM is available. Personally I don't like using RAM for tmp.

Making this world-writable bucket part of "/" seems silly both for Desktops and
Servers alike.

You're welcome to your opinion. However, I suspect you're expecting FreeBSD
systems to always be partitioned and administered by knowledgeable BSD Unix
sysadmins, and those are not always so readily available as one might assume.

I'm not sure why someone has to be knowledgeable to select a particular
partitioning scheme. Is it better for a novice to have one big / to fill
up as opposed to a separate /var or /tmp?

b. A nuisance

As "Da Rock" points out, ... recovering your system from a
file-system-full-event when using "single-/" is just as difficult regardless of
Desktop versus Server. Having "/tmp" alleviates the difficulty.

It would if /tmp was mounted on a disk partition, and if it also happened to be
where space was being consumed. /var/log and /home tend to be more likely
locations in my experience, but YMMV.

Actually, in my experience I have huge problems with users misusing /tmp
as a holding spot for all manner of files. I like keeping /tmp separate
and smallish to discourage its use for everyday transfers. Those things
belong in a users home directory, not in /tmp.

However, for whatever reasons, the overwhelming majority of folks using MacOS X don't have problems
using a single root partition, and while they sometimes do fill up their disks, that's a situation
which they should be able to recover from without needing expert assistance. I don't recall having
unusual issues in running a partition out of space under FreeBSD, either, or difficulty fixing
things afterwards-- but such doesn't happen very often if you monitor your systems properly, and
have time to respond to "low-space" conditions before they turn into "out of
space" conditions.

Regards,

Previously you said that knowledgeable unix admins aren't as common as
might be thought... now you're making the assumption that these same
novice users will monitor their systems properly for low-space
conditions. In a perfect world we all have snmp running properly or some
other way to notify us of impending doom. In the real world these things
always seem to sneak up and bite us on the behind.

However this is all superfluous conversation if the installer gives each
user a variety of options. You can select your "one big partition"
scheme or go with multiple partitions depending on your preference, and
from what I've read so far, this seems to be not only a reasonable idea,
but also one which many people would prefer.

Dave

--
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Sales Solution Architect II
FIS Banking Solutions
510/621-2089 (w)
530/518-5194 (c)
510/621-2020 (f)
da...@vicor.com
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RE: One or Four?

> -Original Message-
> From: Chuck Swiger [mailto:cswi...@mac.com]
> Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 3:56 PM
> To: Devin Teske
> Cc: FreeBSD -
> Subject: Re: One or Four?
> 
> On Feb 17, 2012, at 3:11 PM, Devin Teske wrote:
> > a. A security issue
> >
> > /tmp is by-default out-of-the-box world-writable (perms 1777).
> 
> Yes.  It works as intended even when /tmp is part of a single root partition;
> although mounting /tmp as a RAM- or swap-based tmpfs filesystem might be
> better for many situations.
> 
> > Making this world-writable bucket part of "/" seems silly both for Desktops
and
> Servers alike.
> 
> You're welcome to your opinion.  However, I suspect you're expecting FreeBSD
> systems to always be partitioned and administered by knowledgeable BSD Unix
> sysadmins, and those are not always so readily available as one might assume.
> 
> > b. A nuisance
> >
> > As "Da Rock" points out, ... recovering your system from a
> > file-system-full-event when using "single-/" is just as difficult regardless
of
> > Desktop versus Server. Having "/tmp" alleviates the difficulty.
> 
> It would if /tmp was mounted on a disk partition, and if it also happened to
be
> where space was being consumed.

Actually, what I meant to say was:

If you have only "single-/" and your filesystem becomes full, having a separate
"/tmp" on the same physical medium can alleviate the issue of "having no space
to work" because you can mount "/tmp" (as the odds of both "/" and "/tmp"
filling up simultaneously and both becoming 100%-full is far-less likely to
occur than having a single partition fill up to max all). Thus, having a "/ +
/tmp" is infinitely wiser than "single-/ without /tmp (or any partition for that
matter)". The argument not necessarily being in favor of "/tmp", but being
dis-favorable against any scheme that involves only one partition which can
blindly be filled and leave the user (at least in a single-disk scenario) no
free space to do anything once-full.

This is somewhat different than what you were referring to, which is that having
"/tmp" simply for the sake of not allowing others to fill your system. Rather,
I'm arguing that "/tmp" also saves you by giving you somewhere to work if/when
you *DO* fill your "/".

>  /var/log and /home tend to be more likely
> locations in my experience, but YMMV.

-- 
Devin

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Re: One or Four?

On Feb 17, 2012, at 3:11 PM, Devin Teske wrote:
> a. A security issue
> 
> /tmp is by-default out-of-the-box world-writable (perms 1777).

Yes.  It works as intended even when /tmp is part of a single root partition; 
although mounting /tmp as a RAM- or swap-based tmpfs filesystem might be better 
for many situations.

> Making this world-writable bucket part of "/" seems silly both for Desktops 
> and Servers alike.

You're welcome to your opinion.  However, I suspect you're expecting FreeBSD 
systems to always be partitioned and administered by knowledgeable BSD Unix 
sysadmins, and those are not always so readily available as one might assume.

> b. A nuisance
> 
> As "Da Rock" points out, ... recovering your system from a
> file-system-full-event when using "single-/" is just as difficult regardless 
> of
> Desktop versus Server. Having "/tmp" alleviates the difficulty.

It would if /tmp was mounted on a disk partition, and if it also happened to be 
where space was being consumed.  /var/log and /home tend to be more likely 
locations in my experience, but YMMV.

> c. A performance issue
> 
> I'm surprised nobody has pointed out the physical performance limitations of
> rotating disks with respect to physical location of partitions on the spindle.
> Granted, seek times are light years beyond what they used to be, but 
> allocating
> smaller "swap" and "tmp" partitions close to the center of the spindle is a
> performance-enhancing setup just as much as it is for protecting against
> file-system-full problems (security events included).

I suggest you do some measurements; starting with diskinfo -t, or something 
like HDTach for Windows:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HD_Tach_Hitachi_HTS541616J9S_SB40-screenshot.png

It's very typical for the outermost tracks of a disk drive to be up to twice as 
fast as the innermost tracks due to the greater amount of data available per 
cylinder on the outer tracks.  These outer tracks are most often given LBA 0, 
and the drive writes data inwards with higher LBA #'s.

[ If performance is especially critical, folks will partition the disks so that 
they only use the outermost third or so of the disk, to maximize read/write 
performance and minimize seeking; this is known as "short stroking" a disk... ]

> I'd argue that there should never be a single-"/" unless you are prepared to
> deal with a truly 100%-full filesystem problem (especially considering that
> Desktop users whom select the default-everything are often not skilled enough 
> to
> deal with that situation). If someone truly wants a single "/" and nothing 
> else,
> there's manual partitioning (which should prove pretty easy in the event that
> you're only creating one partition and nothing else).

More sophisticated partition schemes certainly can have value in terms of 
better isolation from unexpected logfile growth (etc), a separation of 
OS-provided files from user content, a separation of stuff which doesn't change 
often versus stuff that does, and so forth.

However, for whatever reasons, the overwhelming majority of folks using MacOS X 
don't have problems using a single root partition, and while they sometimes do 
fill up their disks, that's a situation which they should be able to recover 
from without needing expert assistance.  I don't recall having unusual issues 
in running a partition out of space under FreeBSD, either, or difficulty fixing 
things afterwards-- but such doesn't happen very often if you monitor your 
systems properly, and have time to respond to "low-space" conditions before 
they turn into "out of space" conditions.

Regards,
-- 
-Chuck

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Re: One or Four?


On 02/18/12 09:24, Robison, Dave wrote:

On 02/17/2012 15:22, Julian H. Stacey wrote:




Let the majority decide which layout is preferred for the default.

No. Bad idea. Not on questions@, the list of the least clued up,
the list raw beginners are referred to subscribe to.  At least get
a majority on hackers@ or current@ or arch@.  Some answers one sees
on questions@ are very good, but some are ... the other way.

So not everyone gets to vote? What happened to democracy :)
Actually, the discussion and ideas so far have been very interesting 
and helpful.


Keep it coming.

It has been rather interesting to find the limits of the extreme.

The performance aspects are a very good point, one of the original 
reasons why the layout was chosen to begin with. Not so much an issue 
now... but still valid.

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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-17 Thread Robison, Dave


On 02/17/2012 15:22, Julian H. Stacey wrote:




Let the majority decide which layout is preferred for the default.

No. Bad idea. Not on questions@, the list of the least clued up,
the list raw beginners are referred to subscribe to.  At least get
a majority on hackers@ or current@ or arch@.  Some answers one sees
on questions@ are very good, but some are ... the other way.


Cheers,
Julian


Actually, the discussion and ideas so far have been very interesting and 
helpful.


Keep it coming.

Dave


--
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FIS Banking Solutions
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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-17 Thread Polytropon

On Fri, 17 Feb 2012 15:11:52 -0800, Devin Teske wrote:
> 
> 
> > -Original Message-
> > From: owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org [mailto:owner-freebsd-
> > questi...@freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Jerry McAllister
> > Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 2:53 PM
> > To: Polytropon
> > Cc: david.robi...@fisglobal.com; freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
> > Subject: Re: One or Four?
> > 
> > >
> > > > Let the majority decide which layout is preferred for the default.
> > >
> > > Why not add a selection to the installer, something like
> > > this:
> > >
> > >   Partition scheme
> > >   
> > >
> > >   [ ] all in one + swap
> > >   Create one partition containing all subtrees
> > >   plus one swap partition.
> > >
> > >   [ ] separate partitioning + swap
> > >   Create /, /var, /tmp and /usr (including home)
> > >   partitions plus one swap partition.
> > >
> > >   [ ] user-defined
> > >   Make your own partitioning selection manually.
> > >
> > > Of course, the default SIZES for second choice should be
> > > reasonable.
> > >
> > 
> > Yes.  Yes.   This is the way to go.

Let me change the caption of the second choice to this:

[ ] traditionally separated partitioning + swap

Because it's the installer's tradition to put /home into /usr.

> I'd agree, but I'd like to envision a modular approach where multiple schemes
> can be maintained.
> 
> E.g. a menu containing...
> 
> "Scheme 1: / + swap + /tmp"
> "Scheme 2: / + swap + /tmp + /var"
> "Scheme 3: / + swap + /tmp + /var + /usr"
> "Scheme 4: / + swap + /tmp + /var + /usr + /home"

I'm missing scheme 5 with /opt. :-)

According to combinatoric possibilities, / + swap + /tmp + /usr
is also missing. It would be no good idea (in my opinion) to
present the user a list of _all_ possible combinations just in
case he would like to have one of them. My idea to use three
options ("minimal", "traditional", user-defined) would be fully
sufficient, as all those who have no idea what they do would
use the first choice, those who intendedly want the traditional
approach would use the second choice, and all those not wanting
one of those would be clever enough to deal with manually
defining their own scheme.

> I'm actually thinking that "not having a separate /tmp" is:
> 
> a. A security issue
> 
> /tmp is by-default out-of-the-box world-writable (perms 1777). Making this
> world-writable bucket part of "/" seems silly both for Desktops and Servers
> alike.

Fully agree. I pointed out why this can be dangerous. Having
/tmp in memory is good (and secure!) if it's possible (note:
enough RAM needed), but not an option on systems low on RAM.

This kind of possible fine tuning partition-wise (soft updates,
journaling, quota, dump, ro, noexec, noatime etc.) doesn't
typically take place on average desktops, but there may be
cases where you need to do that.

> b. A nuisance
> 
> As "Da Rock" points out, ... recovering your system from a
> file-system-full-event when using "single-/" is just as difficult regardless 
> of
> Desktop versus Server. Having "/tmp" alleviates the difficulty.

I don't think the separation "desktop vs. server" serves well
here. It's not about what kind of machine (or form factor) is
used, but the actual _employment_ of the machine, the intended
way of using it is. Note that there are also mixed forms, e. g.
a home desktop that provides some server functionalities. That's
why I think making a selection for partitioning schemes should
take SCHEMES into mind, not "server or desktop".

> c. A performance issue
> 
> I'm surprised nobody has pointed out the physical performance limitations of
> rotating disks with respect to physical location of partitions on the spindle.
> Granted, seek times are light years beyond what they used to be, but 
> allocating
> smaller "swap" and "tmp" partitions close to the center of the spindle is a
> performance-enhancing setup just as much as it is for protecting against
> file-system-full problems (security events included).

As I said, sometimes you need to squeeze every bit of performance
out of a machine. Fiddling with the location of certain functional
pieces of the OS _on the disk_ can be a big help here.

> I'd argue that there should never be a single-"/" unless you are prepared to
> deal with a truly 100%-full filesystem problem (especially considering that
> Desktop users whom

Re: One or Four?

2012-02-17 Thread Julian H. Stacey

> We'd like a show of hands to see if folks prefer the "old" style default 
> with 4 partitions and swap, or the newer iteration with 1 partition and 
> swap.

I've been doing Unix 30+ years, so there's a tendency to respond
"Multiple", 'cos seeing a single 1 partition on a system normaly
meant it had been set up by someone clueless or lazy.  Though not
always, as there could very occasionaly be good reason for it.  ...
& ZFS now muddies the water.  However whichever way ...


> Let the majority decide which layout is preferred for the default.

No. Bad idea. Not on questions@, the list of the least clued up,
the list raw beginners are referred to subscribe to.  At least get
a majority on hackers@ or current@ or arch@.  Some answers one sees
on questions@ are very good, but some are ... the other way.


Cheers,
Julian
-- 
Julian Stacey, BSD Unix Linux C Sys Eng Consultants Munich http://berklix.com
 Reply below not above, cumulative like a play script, & indent with "> ".
 Format: Plain text. Not HTML, multipart/alternative, base64, quoted-printable.
Mail from @yahoo dumped @berklix.  http://berklix.org/yahoo/
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RE: One or Four?



> -Original Message-
> From: owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org [mailto:owner-freebsd-
> questi...@freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Jerry McAllister
> Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 2:53 PM
> To: Polytropon
> Cc: david.robi...@fisglobal.com; freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: One or Four?
> 
> >
> > > Let the majority decide which layout is preferred for the default.
> >
> > Why not add a selection to the installer, something like
> > this:
> >
> > Partition scheme
> > 
> >
> > [ ] all in one + swap
> > Create one partition containing all subtrees
> > plus one swap partition.
> >
> > [ ] separate partitioning + swap
> > Create /, /var, /tmp and /usr (including home)
> > partitions plus one swap partition.
> >
> > [ ] user-defined
> > Make your own partitioning selection manually.
> >
> > Of course, the default SIZES for second choice should be
> > reasonable.
> >
> 
> Yes.  Yes.   This is the way to go.
> 

I'd agree, but I'd like to envision a modular approach where multiple schemes
can be maintained.

E.g. a menu containing...

"Scheme 1: / + swap + /tmp"
"Scheme 2: / + swap + /tmp + /var"
"Scheme 3: / + swap + /tmp + /var + /usr"
"Scheme 4: / + swap + /tmp + /var + /usr + /home"

NOTE: See what I did there? There is no option for "/ ", explanation below.

I'm actually thinking that "not having a separate /tmp" is:

a. A security issue

/tmp is by-default out-of-the-box world-writable (perms 1777). Making this
world-writable bucket part of "/" seems silly both for Desktops and Servers
alike.

b. A nuisance

As "Da Rock" points out, ... recovering your system from a
file-system-full-event when using "single-/" is just as difficult regardless of
Desktop versus Server. Having "/tmp" alleviates the difficulty.


c. A performance issue

I'm surprised nobody has pointed out the physical performance limitations of
rotating disks with respect to physical location of partitions on the spindle.
Granted, seek times are light years beyond what they used to be, but allocating
smaller "swap" and "tmp" partitions close to the center of the spindle is a
performance-enhancing setup just as much as it is for protecting against
file-system-full problems (security events included).

===

I'd argue that there should never be a single-"/" unless you are prepared to
deal with a truly 100%-full filesystem problem (especially considering that
Desktop users whom select the default-everything are often not skilled enough to
deal with that situation). If someone truly wants a single "/" and nothing else,
there's manual partitioning (which should prove pretty easy in the event that
you're only creating one partition and nothing else).
-- 
Devin

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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-17 Thread Douglas Carmichael

I like this because it gives the user a choice, and it clearly lays out the 
choices based on partition schemes instead of a less-specific 'machine use' 
choice.

Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 17, 2012, at 4:46 PM, Polytropon  wrote:

> Four? There should be five! :-)
> 
> Read on to find out why.
> 
> 
> 
> On Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:05:23 -0800, Robison, Dave wrote:
>> We'd like a show of hands to see if folks prefer the "old" style default 
>> with 4 partitions and swap, or the newer iteration with 1 partition and 
>> swap.
> 
> In my case, preference depends on use. When I'm unable to
> predict how partition occupation will develop, going with
> one / partition is a good approach. It can also be useful
> for cases like home desktops.
> 
> Other cases, like dedicated servers or systems that use
> more than one physical disk (e. g. one system disk, one
> home disk) the approach of using more than one partition
> is welcome.
> 
> I'd like to mention that using different partitions for
> a logical separation of mechanisms and functionalities
> can be a _big_ help in worst case (which you'll hopefully
> never will encounter, but be prepared). For example, if
> you have file system trouble with the /home partition,
> you can bring the system up in a limited state (SUM),
> make the partition "ro" and get the data. You can then
> boot the system into the normal state (MUM) with using
> the copy you made, leaving the original /home partition
> unmounted and untouched. In case of data recovery and
> forensic analysis this can be your chance to get your
> data back.
> 
> 
> 
>> We realize that one can use bsdinstall to create as many partitions as 
>> one wants. However, the new default is for one partition and swap. We 
>> want to know if people would prefer the older style default with four 
>> partitions and swap when selecting "Guided Partitioning" and "Use Entire 
>> Disk".
> 
> Well, to be honest, I never liked the "old style" default
> with /home being part of /usr. As I mentioned before, _my_
> default style for separated partitions include:
> 
>/
>swap
>/tmp
>/var
>/usr
>/home
> 
> In special cases, add /opt or /scratch as separate partitions
> with intendedly limited sizes.
> 
> You can see that all user data is kept independently from
> the rest of the system. It can easily be switched over to
> a separate "home disk" if needed.
> 
> What's the reason for this? Limited partitions are often
> considered a problem, but they can be a system's life saver.
> Just imagine you have all functional parts of the system in
> one big / tree, let's also say /tmp is writable for users
> (and it's not a memory file system); now a maliciously acting
> user or program could fill /tmp with lots of data, occupying
> the full disk. Soon, /var/log cannot be written anymore, and
> also other processes that need to write something may get
> into trouble. If /tmp is a separate partition, only /tmp can
> get "out of disk space", with /var being fully untouched.
> 
> Also keep in mind that some tools like to operate on partition
> level, such as dump (and restore). System tools like quota can
> also be used on a partition level. As I mentioned before, being
> able to mount a partition read-only can be helpful sometimes,
> same goes for other mount options, such as noexec or noatime.
> When dealing with this low level stuff is neccessary (e. g. on
> embedded systems or systems that are low on resources where you
> need to squeeze every bit of performance by fine tuning), having
> individual partitions can be a big help.
> 
> 
> 
>> Let the majority decide which layout is preferred for the default.
> 
> Why not add a selection to the installer, something like
> this:
> 
>Partition scheme
>
> 
>[ ] all in one + swap
>Create one partition containing all subtrees
>plus one swap partition.
> 
>[ ] separate partitioning + swap
>Create /, /var, /tmp and /usr (including home)
>partitions plus one swap partition.
> 
>[ ] user-defined
>Make your own partitioning selection manually.
> 
> Of course, the default SIZES for second choice should be
> reasonable.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Polytropon
> Magdeburg, Germany
> Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
> Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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Re: One or Four?


On 02/18/12 08:40, Maxim Khitrov wrote:

On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 5:05 PM, Robison, Dave
  wrote:

Hiya,

A question has arisen with the implementation of bsdinstall in 9.x as
opposed to sysinstall in 8.x and previous versions of FreeBSD.

It has always been FreeBSD's default to create four partitions and swap as
such:

/
/tmp
/var
/usr
swap

The recent changes in 9.x with bsdinstall use a default behavior which
creates only one partition and swap, with everything living under a single
"/" partition as such:

/
swap

We'd like a show of hands to see if folks prefer the "old" style default
with 4 partitions and swap, or the newer iteration with 1 partition and
swap.

This is not a discussion of MBR vs GPT. The default moving forward from 9.x
will be to use GPT.

We realize that one can use bsdinstall to create as many partitions as one
wants. However, the new default is for one partition and swap. We want to
know if people would prefer the older style default with four partitions and
swap when selecting "Guided Partitioning" and "Use Entire Disk".

Let the majority decide which layout is preferred for the default.

/ and /usr should be merged together, /var should stay separate, and
/tmp should be tmpfs :)

At least that's my preferred server configuration starting with 9.0. I
see no benefits in keeping / and /usr separate. A desktop can have
/var on the same file system as well, but servers should always
isolate it.

Just a few days ago, a misbehaving php script filled-up my entire /var
partition when it got into an endless loop. I've since realized the
value of blocking repeated error log messages in php configuration,
but keeping /var away from the rest was a good safety net.
I don't see how a server and desktop should be handled differently, in 
fact a desktop could be more disastrous than a server so the separate 
partitions have saved asses many times.


/tmp should be tmpfs, yes; but / and /usr should be separate still 
(c'mon! It's only 1G; why quibble?) because desktop users are not always 
as 'diligent' as they should be with space, or something else can occur 
to fill it up. If it is full, then you can't put a fix in /root/, edit 
fstab, rc.conf, syslog.conf, anything. There are serious consequences to 
a full file system that can render the system useless.


A server may be mission critical, production, whatever; but a desktop 
user doesn't want too much hassle to restore the system either, 
especially on a laptop. They certainly don't want to blow the system 
away and start again for something that silly (dramatic and over the 
top, I know, but a new user may do just that if they don't know how to 
fix it quickly without difficulty). The cost of the original layout was 
small, and the benefit was huge, I've still set all my systems this way 
(desktop/server).


If you are going to change back to the old behaviour don't discriminate.

And on that note: I have my hand up and waving wildly :)
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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-17 Thread Douglas Carmichael

I would prefer having the option of four partitions for fault tolerance reasons 
if needed.

Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 17, 2012, at 4:35 PM, Devin Teske  wrote:

> 
> 
>> -Original Message-
>> From: owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org [mailto:owner-freebsd-
>> questi...@freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Chuck Swiger
>> Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 2:18 PM
>> To: david.robi...@fisglobal.com
>> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
>> Subject: Re: One or Four?
>> 
>> On Feb 17, 2012, at 2:05 PM, Robison, Dave wrote:
>>> We'd like a show of hands to see if folks prefer the "old" style default
> with 4
>> partitions and swap, or the newer iteration with 1 partition and swap.
>> 
>> For a user/desktop machine, I prefer one root partition.  For other roles 
>> like
> a
>> server, I prefer multiple partitions which have been sized for the intended
> usage.
>> 
> 
> Then does the question ultimately become...
> 
> "Shall we then have two algorithms and ask the user whether they are 
> installing
> for the desktop versus server?"
> 
> If that's the case, then I think this is something I could personally live 
> with
> (as it then becomes possible to obtain the old layout of 4 partitions with
> auto-calculated sizes ala Colin Percival's last sizing algorithm committed in
> version 1.149 of src/usr.sbin/sysinstall/label.c made pre-SVN 6 years 6 months
> ago).
> 
> See
> http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/usr.sbin/sysinstall/Attic/label.c?rev=
> 1.149;content-type=text%2Fx-cvsweb-markup
> 
> The above link describes the partition scheme that I and colleagues seek-most 
> to
> return to FreeBSD 9.x and higher.
> 
> I argue that Colin's algorithm is still useful for servers and is still the
> preferred method of allocation for servers and thus should remain an option,
> even if we don't change the [new] default back to the above linked-to scheme.
> -- 
> Devin
> 
> 
> _
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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-17 Thread Jerry McAllister

> 
> > Let the majority decide which layout is preferred for the default.
> 
> Why not add a selection to the installer, something like
> this:
> 
>   Partition scheme
>   
> 
>   [ ] all in one + swap
>   Create one partition containing all subtrees
>   plus one swap partition.
> 
>   [ ] separate partitioning + swap
>   Create /, /var, /tmp and /usr (including home)
>   partitions plus one swap partition.
> 
>   [ ] user-defined
>   Make your own partitioning selection manually.
> 
> Of course, the default SIZES for second choice should be
> reasonable.
> 

Yes.  Yes.   This is the way to go.

jerry


> 
> -- 
> Polytropon
> Magdeburg, Germany
> Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
> Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-17 Thread Jerry McAllister

On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 02:05:23PM -0800, Robison, Dave wrote:

> Hiya,
> 
> A question has arisen with the implementation of bsdinstall in 9.x as 
> opposed to sysinstall in 8.x and previous versions of FreeBSD.
> 
> It has always been FreeBSD's default to create four partitions and swap 
> as such:
> 
> /
> /tmp
> /var
> /usr
> swap
> 
> The recent changes in 9.x with bsdinstall use a default behavior which 
> creates only one partition and swap, with everything living under a 
> single "/" partition as such:
> 
> /
> swap
> 
> We'd like a show of hands to see if folks prefer the "old" style default 
> with 4 partitions and swap, or the newer iteration with 1 partition and 
> swap.

I much prefer to have the choice to create partitions as I need.
My typical default is:

  / 
  /tmp
  /usr
  /var
  /homeor some other name such as /work
  swap

That looks like 5 plus swap to me.

I also want to decide the size of partitions.
I have never found the default sizes to be servicable or adequate.

Having said this, I occasionally have created servers with 
just root and swap.   It depends on circumstances and need
and I hope not to lose the option to choose or to have that 
option require some complicated and arcane/hidden procedure 
to choose other than the default.

I have never had problems with getting disks built, newfs-ed 
and mounted using the Sysinstall controlled stuff.  There are 
other things that Sysinstall needed, but choosing/creating 
partitions was not a problem.

I understand that going to GPT means some changes, but I am
sure that it should be able to create partitions of any size 
with probably a larger range of identifiers.  Since my new 
machines have not arrived yet (expecting soon), I haven't
explored the magic of GPT and am still rather foggy on where
it fits in the overall picture.  I am looking forward to get it
insinuated in to my thick head soon.

BSDinstall control of partitioning should just be adding features 
and capacity and not removing any options (except if there are 
some that are actually obsolete).  Having said that, upgrading 
the language and the way options and sizes are specified is fine 
with me as long as it is all there, available and clearly labeled 
and documented.

Thanks for asking,

jerry

> 
> This is not a discussion of MBR vs GPT. The default moving forward from 
> 9.x will be to use GPT.
> 
> We realize that one can use bsdinstall to create as many partitions as 
> one wants. However, the new default is for one partition and swap. We 
> want to know if people would prefer the older style default with four 
> partitions and swap when selecting "Guided Partitioning" and "Use Entire 
> Disk".
> 
> Let the majority decide which layout is preferred for the default.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Dave
> 
> -- 
> Dave Robison
> Sales Solution Architect II
> FIS Banking Solutions
> 510/621-2089 (w)
> 530/518-5194 (c)
> 510/621-2020 (f)
> da...@vicor.com
> david.robi...@fisglobal.com
> 
> _
> The information contained in this message is proprietary and/or 
> confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, please: (i) delete the 
> message and all copies; (ii) do not disclose, distribute or use the message 
> in any manner; and (iii) notify the sender immediately. In addition, please 
> be aware that any message addressed to our domain is subject to archiving 
> and review by persons other than the intended recipient. Thank you.
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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-17 Thread Polytropon

Four? There should be five! :-)

Read on to find out why.

On Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:05:23 -0800, Robison, Dave wrote:
> We'd like a show of hands to see if folks prefer the "old" style default 
> with 4 partitions and swap, or the newer iteration with 1 partition and 
> swap.

In my case, preference depends on use. When I'm unable to
predict how partition occupation will develop, going with
one / partition is a good approach. It can also be useful
for cases like home desktops.

Other cases, like dedicated servers or systems that use
more than one physical disk (e. g. one system disk, one
home disk) the approach of using more than one partition
is welcome.

I'd like to mention that using different partitions for
a logical separation of mechanisms and functionalities
can be a _big_ help in worst case (which you'll hopefully
never will encounter, but be prepared). For example, if
you have file system trouble with the /home partition,
you can bring the system up in a limited state (SUM),
make the partition "ro" and get the data. You can then
boot the system into the normal state (MUM) with using
the copy you made, leaving the original /home partition
unmounted and untouched. In case of data recovery and
forensic analysis this can be your chance to get your
data back.

> We realize that one can use bsdinstall to create as many partitions as 
> one wants. However, the new default is for one partition and swap. We 
> want to know if people would prefer the older style default with four 
> partitions and swap when selecting "Guided Partitioning" and "Use Entire 
> Disk".

Well, to be honest, I never liked the "old style" default
with /home being part of /usr. As I mentioned before, _my_
default style for separated partitions include:

/
swap
/tmp
/var
/usr
/home

In special cases, add /opt or /scratch as separate partitions
with intendedly limited sizes.

You can see that all user data is kept independently from
the rest of the system. It can easily be switched over to
a separate "home disk" if needed.

What's the reason for this? Limited partitions are often
considered a problem, but they can be a system's life saver.
Just imagine you have all functional parts of the system in
one big / tree, let's also say /tmp is writable for users
(and it's not a memory file system); now a maliciously acting
user or program could fill /tmp with lots of data, occupying
the full disk. Soon, /var/log cannot be written anymore, and
also other processes that need to write something may get
into trouble. If /tmp is a separate partition, only /tmp can
get "out of disk space", with /var being fully untouched.

Also keep in mind that some tools like to operate on partition
level, such as dump (and restore). System tools like quota can
also be used on a partition level. As I mentioned before, being
able to mount a partition read-only can be helpful sometimes,
same goes for other mount options, such as noexec or noatime.
When dealing with this low level stuff is neccessary (e. g. on
embedded systems or systems that are low on resources where you
need to squeeze every bit of performance by fine tuning), having
individual partitions can be a big help.

> Let the majority decide which layout is preferred for the default.

Why not add a selection to the installer, something like
this:

Partition scheme

[ ] all in one + swap
Create one partition containing all subtrees
plus one swap partition.

[ ] separate partitioning + swap
Create /, /var, /tmp and /usr (including home)
partitions plus one swap partition.

[ ] user-defined
Make your own partitioning selection manually.

Of course, the default SIZES for second choice should be
reasonable.

-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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Re: One or Four?

2012-02-17 Thread Maxim Khitrov

On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 5:05 PM, Robison, Dave
 wrote:
> Hiya,
>
> A question has arisen with the implementation of bsdinstall in 9.x as
> opposed to sysinstall in 8.x and previous versions of FreeBSD.
>
> It has always been FreeBSD's default to create four partitions and swap as
> such:
>
> /
> /tmp
> /var
> /usr
> swap
>
> The recent changes in 9.x with bsdinstall use a default behavior which
> creates only one partition and swap, with everything living under a single
> "/" partition as such:
>
> /
> swap
>
> We'd like a show of hands to see if folks prefer the "old" style default
> with 4 partitions and swap, or the newer iteration with 1 partition and
> swap.
>
> This is not a discussion of MBR vs GPT. The default moving forward from 9.x
> will be to use GPT.
>
> We realize that one can use bsdinstall to create as many partitions as one
> wants. However, the new default is for one partition and swap. We want to
> know if people would prefer the older style default with four partitions and
> swap when selecting "Guided Partitioning" and "Use Entire Disk".
>
> Let the majority decide which layout is preferred for the default.

/ and /usr should be merged together, /var should stay separate, and
/tmp should be tmpfs :)

At least that's my preferred server configuration starting with 9.0. I
see no benefits in keeping / and /usr separate. A desktop can have
/var on the same file system as well, but servers should always
isolate it.

Just a few days ago, a misbehaving php script filled-up my entire /var
partition when it got into an endless loop. I've since realized the
value of blocking repeated error log messages in php configuration,
but keeping /var away from the rest was a good safety net.

- Max
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RE: One or Four?

> -Original Message-
> From: owner-freebsd-questi...@freebsd.org [mailto:owner-freebsd-
> questi...@freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Chuck Swiger
> Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 2:18 PM
> To: david.robi...@fisglobal.com
> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: One or Four?
> 
> On Feb 17, 2012, at 2:05 PM, Robison, Dave wrote:
> > We'd like a show of hands to see if folks prefer the "old" style default
with 4
> partitions and swap, or the newer iteration with 1 partition and swap.
> 
> For a user/desktop machine, I prefer one root partition.  For other roles like
a
> server, I prefer multiple partitions which have been sized for the intended
usage.
> 

Then does the question ultimately become...

"Shall we then have two algorithms and ask the user whether they are installing
for the desktop versus server?"

If that's the case, then I think this is something I could personally live with
(as it then becomes possible to obtain the old layout of 4 partitions with
auto-calculated sizes ala Colin Percival's last sizing algorithm committed in
version 1.149 of src/usr.sbin/sysinstall/label.c made pre-SVN 6 years 6 months
ago).

See
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/usr.sbin/sysinstall/Attic/label.c?rev=
1.149;content-type=text%2Fx-cvsweb-markup

The above link describes the partition scheme that I and colleagues seek-most to
return to FreeBSD 9.x and higher.

I argue that Colin's algorithm is still useful for servers and is still the
preferred method of allocation for servers and thus should remain an option,
even if we don't change the [new] default back to the above linked-to scheme.
-- 
Devin

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Re: One or Four?