atom feed97 messages in org.freebsd.freebsd-questionsRE: One or Four?
FromSent OnAttachments
Robison, DaveFeb 17, 2012 2:05 pm 
Chuck SwigerFeb 17, 2012 2:17 pm 
Devin TeskeFeb 17, 2012 2:34 pm 
Maxim KhitrovFeb 17, 2012 2:40 pm 
Douglas CarmichaelFeb 17, 2012 2:42 pm 
PolytroponFeb 17, 2012 2:46 pm 
Jerry McAllisterFeb 17, 2012 2:48 pm 
Douglas CarmichaelFeb 17, 2012 2:50 pm 
Jerry McAllisterFeb 17, 2012 2:53 pm 
Da RockFeb 17, 2012 2:54 pm 
Devin TeskeFeb 17, 2012 3:11 pm 
Julian H. StaceyFeb 17, 2012 3:19 pm 
PolytroponFeb 17, 2012 3:22 pm 
Robison, DaveFeb 17, 2012 3:24 pm 
Da RockFeb 17, 2012 3:29 pm 
Chris HillFeb 17, 2012 3:49 pm 
Chuck SwigerFeb 17, 2012 3:55 pm 
Devin TeskeFeb 17, 2012 4:02 pm 
Robison, DaveFeb 17, 2012 4:09 pm 
Devin TeskeFeb 17, 2012 4:11 pm 
Chuck SwigerFeb 17, 2012 4:40 pm 
Devin TeskeFeb 17, 2012 4:54 pm 
Da RockFeb 17, 2012 4:54 pm 
Da RockFeb 17, 2012 4:59 pm 
Devin TeskeFeb 17, 2012 5:05 pm 
Devin TeskeFeb 17, 2012 5:09 pm 
Chuck SwigerFeb 17, 2012 5:13 pm 
David BrodbeckFeb 17, 2012 5:17 pm 
Da RockFeb 17, 2012 5:17 pm 
Doug HardieFeb 17, 2012 5:50 pm 
Erich DollanskyFeb 17, 2012 6:08 pm 
Daniel StaalFeb 17, 2012 6:16 pm 
Da RockFeb 17, 2012 7:16 pm 
Leslie JensenFeb 17, 2012 9:44 pm 
Lars EighnerFeb 17, 2012 10:05 pm 
Robert BonomiFeb 17, 2012 10:32 pm 
Robert BonomiFeb 17, 2012 11:15 pm 
Erich DollanskyFeb 17, 2012 11:47 pm 
Doug HardieFeb 17, 2012 11:54 pm 
Matthew SeamanFeb 18, 2012 12:39 am 
PolytroponFeb 18, 2012 2:12 am 
PolytroponFeb 18, 2012 2:22 am 
Da RockFeb 18, 2012 2:43 am 
Damien FleuriotFeb 18, 2012 3:06 am 
Damien FleuriotFeb 18, 2012 3:10 am 
Matthew SeamanFeb 18, 2012 3:23 am 
Da RockFeb 18, 2012 3:36 am 
PolytroponFeb 18, 2012 3:39 am 
Da RockFeb 18, 2012 3:56 am 
Matthew SeamanFeb 18, 2012 5:38 am 
Da RockFeb 18, 2012 5:47 am 
Matthew SeamanFeb 18, 2012 6:28 am 
Robert BonomiFeb 18, 2012 6:45 am 
RWFeb 18, 2012 6:54 am 
Da RockFeb 18, 2012 6:54 am 
PolytroponFeb 18, 2012 8:26 am 
Jerry McAllisterFeb 18, 2012 1:06 pm 
Jerry McAllisterFeb 18, 2012 1:33 pm 
Michael SierchioFeb 18, 2012 2:45 pm 
Matthew StoryFeb 18, 2012 3:08 pm 
Daniel StaalFeb 18, 2012 3:10 pm 
Michael SierchioFeb 18, 2012 3:31 pm 
Erich DollanskyFeb 18, 2012 5:03 pm 
Jerry McAllisterFeb 18, 2012 6:30 pm 
Erich DollanskyFeb 18, 2012 7:54 pm 
Carl JohnsonFeb 18, 2012 8:39 pm 
Erich DollanskyFeb 18, 2012 9:26 pm 
Stephen CookFeb 18, 2012 11:21 pm 
Julian H. StaceyFeb 19, 2012 6:29 am 
Daniel StaalFeb 19, 2012 8:10 am 
parvFeb 19, 2012 8:43 am 
Julian H. StaceyFeb 19, 2012 10:37 am 
Da RockFeb 20, 2012 6:44 am 
Jerry McAllisterFeb 20, 2012 6:47 am 
Jerry McAllisterFeb 20, 2012 6:55 am 
Jerry McAllisterFeb 20, 2012 6:58 am 
Julian H. StaceyFeb 20, 2012 8:14 am 
Jerry McAllisterFeb 20, 2012 8:34 am 
Devin TeskeFeb 20, 2012 8:36 am 
Julian H. StaceyFeb 20, 2012 9:43 am 
Robison, DaveFeb 20, 2012 1:43 pm 
Paul MatherFeb 20, 2012 2:05 pm 
Erich DollanskyFeb 20, 2012 6:09 pm 
Chip CamdenFeb 20, 2012 9:25 pm 
Erich DollanskyFeb 20, 2012 9:40 pm 
Robert BonomiFeb 20, 2012 10:06 pm 
Chip CamdenFeb 20, 2012 10:19 pm 
Doug HardieFeb 20, 2012 10:52 pm 
Erich DollanskyFeb 20, 2012 11:37 pm 
Erich DollanskyFeb 20, 2012 11:43 pm 
Robert BonomiFeb 21, 2012 4:38 am 
PolytroponFeb 21, 2012 7:18 am 
Jerry McAllisterFeb 21, 2012 7:56 am 
per...@pluto.rain.comFeb 21, 2012 10:13 am 
David BrodbeckFeb 21, 2012 11:47 am 
Erich DollanskyFeb 21, 2012 4:43 pm 
Erich DollanskyFeb 21, 2012 4:50 pm 
Subject:RE: One or Four?
From:Devin Teske (devi@fisglobal.com)
Date:Feb 17, 2012 5:09:27 pm
List:org.freebsd.freebsd-questions

-----Original Message----- From: owne@freebsd.org [mailto:owner-freebsd- ques@freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Da Rock Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 5:00 PM To: free@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_ because it doesn't use the all /, or a qualified sysadmin is watching over it.

+1

And as ideal as it is to sit and hypothesize how great things might be in the Desktop world if Desktop users are given the chance to use one big "/" partition, I'm just terribly afraid (as you likewise point out) that the decision to make this the default was short-sighted to say the least.

-- Devin

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