Re: how to increase space for tmpfs /tmp

[Camaleón <noelamac@gmail.com>]

On Wed, 28 Mar 2012 16:58:03 -0600, Paul E Condon wrote:

> My particular problem is a project in which I regularly need to sort
> files 2 to 3 GB in size on a computer with less than 1 GB of ram and 370
> GB of rotating disk. But I am sure there are other problems needing
> real, physical scratch space running very nicely on computers old enough
> to have once run woody. And now they are to be broken by something in
> wheezy software? Can this happen? Really?
> 
> I hope some work-around that actually survives testing is suggested
> soon.

Paul,

As others already have stated, your problem is solved by either:

1. Disabling the usage of "tmpfs" by "/tmp" 
aka: "conservative/what-just-works" approach
alias: "take it from the disk, babe"

This is a setting you can easily tweak from "/etc/default/rcS" file by 
editing the variable "RAMTMP=no" and this has no additional requirements, 
that is, you can have:

	1.1 A physical dedicated mount point for "/tmp" in your hard
	disk. The size limit here is imposed by the size of the "/tmp" 
		partition.

	1.2 Or you can have no "/tmp" mount point at all in which case 
		the whole root mount point "/" will be used to hold the data 
		that need to be placed under "/tmp". The size limit here is
	imposed by the size of the whole "/" partition.

2. Enabling the usage of "tmpfs" by "/tmp" 
aka: "need for speed/living in the edge" approach
alias: "take it from the RAM, babe"

This is now the default setting which can lead to some problems because 
the default value for this parameter is calculated taking into account a 
unique variable (the computer's RAM size) and thus setting the size of "/
tmp" as little/much as 20% of its value. This default value can be, of 
course, customized by the user so you can adjust the size to be used as 
litte/big as you want (though there are also size limits).

Hope now is more clear :-)

Greetings,

-- 
Camaleón