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Re: Debian, FHS & /floppy



on Wed, Jan 16, 2002 at 06:59:48PM +0100, martin f krafft (madduck@madduck.net) wrote:
> also sprach Romuald DELAVERGNE <delavergne@availix.fr> [2002.01.16.1837 +0100]:
> > Le 2002.01.16 16:17, martin f krafft a écrit :
> > > exaclty. but say you have /mnt/cdrom and /mnt/floppy, and both mounted,
> > > and now you want to make proper use of what /mnt is, and you mount
> > > another partition on /mnt. byebye cdrom, byebye floppy.
> > 
> > Yes I know. I just use '/mnt' as a directory which contains directories for
> > all mountable peripherals. Before, I haved symbolic links in '/' to these
> > directories. I removed them to  make '/' cleaner.
> 
> which is exactly the point, and which violates the FHS:
> 
> section 3.11: "/mnt : Mount point for a temporarily mounted filesystem"
>                                       ^
> it is the mount point for *a* filesystem, not a directory to hold mount
> points for a number of filesystems.

I read that as "if you have a filesystem and need to temporarially mount
it, place it (at or below) /mnt."  This is supported by:

    3.11.1  Purpose

    This directory is provided so that the system administrator may
    temporarily mount a filesystem as needed.  THE CONTENT OF THIS
    DIRECTORY IS A LOCAL ISSUE AND SHOULD NOT AFFECT THE MANNER IN WHICH
    ANY PROGRAM IS RUN.

    This directory must not be used by installation programs: a suitable
    temporary directory not in use by the system must be used instead.

    [Emphasis added]

Note that content of a directory, and mouting at a particular point, are
mutually exclusive (or at least nonsensical, as files and/or directories
on the FS to which another FS is mounted, at the mount point, are
inaccessible).  The FHS is saying, in effect, you can mount *at* /mnt,
or *within* it, at your option, and we're not going to stick our noses
in this issue.

Note too, from a system management perspective, use of /mnt gives a
single point of control for issues such as backups, which one presumably
would not make of temporarially mounted, removeable, storage.

Note three, that the FHS _doesn't_ proscribe inclusion of additional
mount points, directories, etc., at root (/).  It merely speaks to those
directories which are required or optional.

Peace.

-- 
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