[SunHELP] a question

[Dale Ghent]

On Aug 27, 2004, at 12:07 PM, Bret Adams wrote:

> I think you missed the grasp of my statement.  There are more than two 
> ways to skin a cat.  Sun recommends one partition and I know a lot of 
> knowledgeable folks who follow suit.  I always liked one partition.  
> That does not imply that one does not know how.  Dont make assumptions 
> about someone's knowledge until you know what you are talking about as 
> well.

Consider this, just for a second if you will.

Let us follow the "one partition for all" scheme, where everything is 
on the / partition. This includes of course /usr and /var.

If you think about it for a second, /var on any machine is going to 
*likely* be the location of most system disk activity. Writing logs and 
mail, mainly. Really, the only time /usr gets touched is when you're 
patching or compiling and installing programs under /usr/local.

Now, since we have most of our local activity on /var, there exists, 
however minute the chance may be, the possibility that in the course of 
a crash, a block or inode in use under /var becomes corrupted. Your 
whole file system under the one partition scheme is now corrupted, and 
if /var were its own file system, the problem would be confined to just 
that area.

See, its all about containment.

Another reason to have multiple partitions - some people, for security 
or change-control reasons, like to put /usr on its own file system and 
mount is read-only.

/dale