Re: partitioning revisited
Hi Keith,
I will try and help as best I can with some of these questions,
and more!
First, I would like to recommend that you read the partitioning how-to
at http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/Partition/partition-4.html
On Thu, Aug 09, 2001 at 09:00:03AM +0100, Keith O'Connell wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have just build a machine, and am ready to start putting the "stable"
> on it. This is the first time I have built one from scratch, and it has
> made me think in detail about what I am doing as I put it all together.
> Now as I am newish to Linux I thought you might indulge me her. On two
> other boxes I have here I have "potato" running fine, but as I think
> about it there may be a better set-up. To help me get to the enlightened
> approach could I pick the panel brains on the following?
>
> 1: I recently read that logical partitions were better than primary
> because of the size limits on the directories. I didn't quit understand
> this. On this laptop I have 4 primary partitions, with the 4th holding 4
> logical. Is this unwise? Should I just have one big logical partition?
I, like Sebastiaan, am not sure about the limit of directory sizes
for primary paritions as opposed to logical's contained withing an
extended partition.
As for the layout of your partitions you should split them up
corresponding to the filesystems that they will contain. When everything
is put on one big partition data can start to get a little spread out
and disorganized. And lets say something strange happens and your system
is logging it. The logs could exhaust the available space, likely
hanging your system if the root filesystem is lumped together with all
filesystems. And if you have filesystem corruption, one directory
hierarchy can affect others. Splitting up partitions helps limit
systematic problems if corruption occurs on a directory.
Also, security can be a concern with one big parition. It's best not
not to put the root filesystem on the same filesystem as user
filesystems, as this may allow 'set user id'(SUID) programs to have more
of a potential to gain access to restricted areas. You should consider
mounting filesystems with the 'nosuid' option(specified in /etc/fstab)
anywhere that you think local or remote users might be up to no good.
For instance, if you are running an anonymous ftp server you might want
to give it it's own partition and mount that filesytem as 'nosuid'.
I got most of the above info from reading a book callied 'Maximum Linux
Security'.
> 2: In my other machines I have 128 Mb memory, so I have had a 128 Mb
> swap file. In my new machine I have taken advantage of the low price and
> put 512 Mb in it. This set me thinking, and I cannot reconcile the
> following I have been told or read;
>
> a: "With 512 Mb ram you don't need a swap file"
> b: "You must have a swap file 2x ram"
> c: "Over 128 Mb ram you must have a swap file of there same
> size"
> d: "A swap file cannot be over 128 Mb"
> e: "A swap file cannot be over 256 Mb"
> f: "A swap file cannot be over 512 Mb"
> g: "Swap files must be in multiple of 128 Mb"
> h: "Swap files are an irrelevance on modern machines"
The amount of space you want to give for a swap partition depends on
a few system specific factors, imo. It depends on how much memory
you have, how large of programs you run and how many. I see that Karsten
seemed to have answered that how big a swap partition can be depends on
the machine architecture, and this same info is also contained the the
partitioning how-to at the url I gave. Where you place it can depend
upon a few things too. If you are not hardly ever giong to be making use
of swap, I suggest putting towards the rear of the drive. If you think
you are going to be using all your ram and hitting the swap occasionaly
and/or on a regular basis then I recommend putting it towards the front
of the drive, where access by the drive heads occurs pretty quickly, or
next to a partition where you believe a lot of drive activity occurs and
the drives heads are spending a lot of their time already, such as
/usr.
> My questions are not from a lack of research, rather I have found out
> too much which is contradictory. I would like some guidance in sorting
> the what from the chaff here
>
> Keith
>
> --
> +----------------------------------------------------------------------+
> | Keith O'Connell | "That which does not kill |
> | Maidstone, Kent (UK) | us, usually still hurts. |
> | keith_oconnell@bigfoot.com | That's just life, I'm afraid" |
> +----------------------------------------------------------------------+
>
>
> --
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All in all, I hope this and others who have responded have helped,
Jimmy Richards
Q: What did the instructor at the school for Kamikazi pilots say to his
students?
A: Watch closely. I'm only going to do this once.
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