Re: single partition worst-case scenarios

[John Hasler <john@dhh.gt.org>]

Andreas Leitner writes:
> Even if you have several partitions, a root process should be able to
> access all of them. So there should be no difference if you have only one
> partition or several.

It is very unlikely that a runaway process, root or not, would be writing
to more than one partition.  If it has not filled the partition containing
/tmp you will be able to kill it.  If it has you can boot into a runlevel
where the tmp partition is not mounted.

> Yep. But chances are high, that even if you have several partitions and
> one get's damaged, you still won't be able to boot.

You will be able to boot as long as the partition containing the files
necessary for booting is undamaged.  That is why you want a seperate /
partition.

For a workstation I create three partitions: one for /, one for tmp, and
one for everything else.  the tmp partition gets mounted on /tmp, the
"everything else" partition gets mounted on /usr, and /var and /home are
symlinks from / into /usr.  Give / and tmp a few hundred MB each and you
will have far more than enough room without making a dent in a modern disk.
-- 
John Hasler
john@dhh.gt.org
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, Wisconsin