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



Hi,

On Mon, Mar 10, 2003 at 06:57:50PM -0800, Thomas Zimmerman wrote:

> On Mon, 10 Mar 2003 18:00:31 +0100
> Emile van Bergen <emile-deb@evbergen.xs4all.nl> wrote:
> 
> > Pidfiles, locks, ifstate, dhcp stuff, mtab, etc. that now need
> > cleaning up at boot time would be perfect candidates for /mem, things
> > like ntp.drift could go in /mem/preserved, and some parts parts of
> > /var/state could be moved to either.
> 
> s/mem/state

Hmm, do you really think that makes its purpose more clear?

I'd say that anything can hold state; the essential properties of this
directory, being that contents will be lost after a reboot, that it's
normally on a memory filesystem, and that even the preserved parts are
therefore normally not saved in a crash, are more accurately reflected
by the name 'mem' than the name 'state'.

You can put state everywhere; the location depends on how long you want
it preserved and under what conditions. There's little about the word
state that implies it's only there until a reboot. /mem gives that
association much more, and it's a TLA, even a meaningful one - which is
a nice to have for a top-level directory IMHO.

> It sounds like everything that you are proposing to live in /mem is
> statfull info that generally makes no sense after a reboot. A
> /state/preserved directory even make more sense for things like the
> ntp.drift file that does have meaning over reboots. 

Yes.

> Does the default kernel shipped with debian have support for
> tmpfs/shmfs? (woody uses 2.2 by default, will sarge use a 2.4 kernel?)
> 
> > This is good for your disks, good for your batteries, simplifies state
> > cleanup at startup, and solves the writable-etc-or-no-networked-var
> > issue with ifstate to boot.
> > 
> > It "just" needs to be added to FHS. 
> 
> A list of changing files currently held in /etc or /var that might be
> nice to have in /state:
> /etc/mtab
> /etc/resolv.conf
> /etc/network/ifstate
> /var/run/*

Yes; also,

/var/lock/ 
/var/lib/ntp/	    (in /mem/preserve/ntp)
/tmp/.X11-unix/
/tmp/.font-unix/

You could go a bit further if you want all writable files out of /etc 
or /dev/ like someone else brought up a while ago, for who this is also
a nice solution. (Hasn't necessarily got anything to do with sharing).

eg. /etc/adjtime, /etc/leapsecs.dat, /etc/adjtime, /dev/gpmctl,
/dev/gpmdata, /dev/initctl.

Cheers,


Emile.

-- 
E-Advies - Emile van Bergen           emile@e-advies.nl      
tel. +31 (0)70 3906153           http://www.e-advies.nl    

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