Re: Partitioning a Web Server

[Daniel Brown <djb@unixan.com>]

Wrote Randy Kramer:

> On Monday 14 April 2003 11:44 pm, Russell Coker wrote:
> > On Sat, 5 Apr 2003 13:38, Michelle Konzack wrote:
> > >                 I mean, Each Client has 250 Mbyte DiskSpace for ftp,
> > >                 http, mail and LOGS and can not use more !!!
> > >
> > >                 But 200-300 partitions on ONE DISK ???
> 
> I'm a little late with this, but just thought that someone should 
> mention that there is some kind of limit on the number of partitions 
> per disk.  It's something like 63 for IDE disks and 16 for SCSI disks 
> (but I could have that backwards).

The loop device (mounting filesystems from a file on a disk) is able
to have more than that -- up to 256 as of recent 2.4 kernels.

The default allocation is small: only 8.  To get more, pass a
parameter of max_loop=<1-256> when booting the kernel or loading the
loop module.  Example for lilo.conf:

image=/vmlinuz
    label=Linux
    read-only
    append="max_loop=256"

Then read losetup(8) manpage and start making some filesystems.

Really, though, limiting disk allocation for clients is more flexibly
done by using quotas, where users are simply stopped from using more
space than they're allowed.

Using partitions or loop devices in web-hosting is only a good idea if
you're providing virtual private servers -- or similar special
purposes.

      -Daniel

-- 
Daniel Brown <djb@unixan.com>