Re: ifupdown writes to /etc... a bug?

[Jeremie Koenig <sprite@sprite.fr.eu.org>]

On Mon, Mar 10, 2003 at 06:00:31PM +0100, Emile van Bergen wrote:
> Good idea, but why copy it over and unmount it at startup instead of
> shutdown?

To have the possibility (on small, possibly diskless systems) to consume
memory at boot only, then to move to cheaper storage? In some situations
each byte counts...

> * keep /tmp as it is now;
> * keep /var as it is now;
> * add /mem, which is RAM-based, writable /very/ early, and initialised
>   in full from /var/mem at bootup, allowing the admin to define a desired
>   initial state;
> * have part of it, eg. /mem/preserved, written back to /var/mem/preserved at
>   shutdown.

Why would it need to be in memory anyway ? Let's say "writable /very/
early" alone (and use something else than /mem as the name). All we need
is in fact only an early writable /var for a few specific boot-time
things. 

This is the kind of problem where something like unionfs would be
welcome. Everything could just be in /var, with some files available
earlier.

> [snip]

> I think /mem/ is cleaner than /var/mem, because the latter either
> requires /var to be already mounted readonly, which sort of defeats the
> purpose, or a lot of messy and fragile data movements at startup. 

Maybe something like /var.early, /var.boot ? This would more adequately
reflect the spirit (at what i think is the spirit) of the whole thing,
and would less "philosophicaly" hurt FHS compliance..

-- 
Jeremie Koenig <sprite@sprite.fr.eu.org>