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Re: A question prompted by HELP!!! - Problems with my root



> Hi.
> 
> Some suggestions already presented: 
> Is the file system mounted read-only?
> Is any space left on the partition?
> 
> This last question makes me wonder about another potential problem.
> 
> How does the system handle this scenario:
> Suppose you have / and /usr on different partitions.
> Before the system mount the usr partition it creates some files under the 
> directory /usr, and then mounts the usr partition on /usr. 
> I read in a HOWTO, I think, that you are not able to get to the files that was
> created under /usr before you mounted the usr partition. Too bad but makes 
> sense.

However, they will be accessible under /usr after you unmount the usr 
partition.

It is feasable to have a few files under /usr (say, in /usr/bin or 
/usr/lib) on the root file system so that you can use them when /usr is 
unmounted.  They will be inaccessible once /usr is mounted, however.  
(I can even see how that might be useful for security: have certain 
files accessible only when /home is not mounted, for instance)

> 
> But do these files add to the sum that df show? 

Yes.  df doesn't report blocks accessible in on a device, but rather 
the blocks the filesystem things are available/not available.  Space is 
still allocated for files hidden under a mount point, so df should and 
does report that.

> Depending on the answer to that question, is there any other commands that 
> might have the wrong idea of space or number of files on a partition.

Few commands care directly about partitions, and when you want 
statistics on a file system, you usually want the figures reported by 
df.  I can see that du might report "erroneous" data, but it shouldn't 
be a problem. 
> 
> 
> Hidden, 
> 
> 						MartinS
> 
> 

-- 
     Buddha Buck                   phaedrus@future.dreamscape.com
"She was infatuated with their male prostitutes, whose members were
like those of donkeys and whose seed came in floods like that of
stallions."  -- Ezekiel 23:20



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