Re: /usr/home vs /home (was: Re: One or Four?)
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, ... ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
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 ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: /usr/home vs /home (was: Re: One or Four?)
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 --- This email copyright the author. Unless otherwise noted, you are expressly allowed to retransmit, quote, or otherwise use the contents for non-commercial purposes. This copyright will expire 5 years after the author's death, or in 30 years, whichever is longer, unless such a period is in excess of local copyright law. --- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: /usr/home vs /home (was: Re: One or Four?)
man hier ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: /usr/home vs /home (was: Re: One or Four?)
On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 5:46 PM, Michael Sierchio ku...@tenebras.comwrote: man hier man 7 hier makes no mention of /home or /usr/home at all ... ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org -- regards, matt ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: /usr/home vs /home (was: Re: One or Four?)
--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 --- This email copyright the author. Unless otherwise noted, you are expressly allowed to retransmit, quote, or otherwise use the contents for non-commercial purposes. This copyright will expire 5 years after the author's death, or in 30 years, whichever is longer, unless such a period is in excess of local copyright law. --- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: /usr/home vs /home (was: Re: One or Four?)
On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 3:10 PM, Daniel Staal dst...@usa.net 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. ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: /usr/home vs /home (was: Re: One or Four?)
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 ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
