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Re: deprecating /usr as a standalone filesystem?



Giacomo Catenazzi <cate@debian.org> writes:

> - On large parallel systems, people use something more than a base debian
>   console installation.
>   Usually on net you have a complete copy for root, var etc
>   (in case of compromised computers. Very handy instead of reinstalling the
>   system)
>   So it is easier also to have a rsync script (without some dirs)
>   And on infrequent security update where data format change,
>   let sysadmin implement a tool to update such numberous systems.
>   But such case is seldom.
>   I really think that *most* debian machines are done in this way
>   (because such systemns have huge number of debian machine, and
>   debian is a very good distribution for such setups)

I think it's pretty unlikely that *most* Debian machines are done that
way.  There are a lot better tools for keeping large numbers of systems
in sync these days than simple cloning from golden images, and a lot of
drawbacks to the golden image approach.

Also, reinstalling systems is completely trivial if you have a decent
FAI infrastructure.  It takes us about ten minutes to rebuild a server
and reinstall all application software, and that's mostly waiting for
the system BIOS boot-up checks and the small amount of manual keying
we've not bothered to automate yet.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>


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