From: Chris Tatnall <c.r.tatn...@larc.nasa.gov>
Subject: File Structure
Date: 1996/08/06
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I was recently talking to an actual UNIX sysadmin about how to determine
which files go into which directories, knowing that these conventions can
be very important with some software, especially general UNIX software that
is not particularly made for Linux. For example, he warned me that leaving
the /var directory in the root partition could produce problems when I set
up printing because overflows could overwrite my root software; additionally
he mentioned that typically apps. should be installed in /opt, not in
/usr/local as per the (RedHat) Linux instructions. I light of all this, I
am wondering if there are any sysadmins that can confirm or deny the
necessity of strictly adhering to UNIX conventions in Linux. The RedHat
distribution tells me to setup five partitions: swap, / , /usr , /usr/local ,
and /home. UNIX typically is setup with swap, / , /usr , /usr/local , /var ,
and /opt at the very minimum (/home is usually a subdir. of
/usr/local/export). Any help would be greatly appreciated.
****************************************************************
Chris Tatnall
GWU/NASA JIAFS Program
(757) 864-8608
c.r.tatn...@larc.nasa.gov
****************************************************************
From: Christopher J Biggs <ch...@gweepery.stallion.oz.au>
Subject: Re: File Structure
Date: 1996/08/07
Message-ID: <9608071458.aa14799@stallion.stallion.oz.au>#1/1
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Chris Tatnall moved upon the face of the 'net and spake thusly:
>I was recently talking to an actual UNIX sysadmin about how to determine
>which files go into which directories, knowing that these conventions can
>be very important with some software, especially general UNIX software that
The conventions are just that, conventions. However they are important in that
you must know WHICH convention a particular program expects. For example if
a program expects to find its configuration files in /etc and you've put
them in /usr/local/etc then you can of course expect difficulty.
A well written UNIX program will have all file locations configurable via a
top-level configuration mechanism at compile time (eg. by editing the
makefile or a config.h file). You should be able to choose locations for
configuration files, log files, spool files etc. that match your local
conventions.
>is not particularly made for Linux. For example, he warned me that leaving
>the /var directory in the root partition could produce problems when I set
>up printing because overflows could overwrite my root software; additionally
Well, it won't overwrite anything, but a full root filesystem is generally
more annoying than a full non-root filesystem. You might not even be able
to log in to fix the problem if you fill up your root filesystem.
>he mentioned that typically apps. should be installed in /opt, not in
>/usr/local as per the (RedHat) Linux instructions. I light of all this, I
Totally arbitrary and the subject of massive flame wars. There is a Linux
Filesystem Standard, which is an agreed set of file locations.
BSD derived Unices and older systems use /usr/local, while the newer
SVR4 unices tend to have a bletcherous and confusing link farm pointing
off into /opt
The Linux file-system standard specifies that /usr/local is used for locally
added software. It does not define a /opt directory.
>am wondering if there are any sysadmins that can confirm or deny the
>necessity of strictly adhering to UNIX conventions in Linux. The RedHat
When you say UNIX, which UNIX variant do you mean?
The Linux Filesystem Standard can be found at
<http://www.eg.bucknell.edu/~quinlan/fsstnd/>.
>distribution tells me to setup five partitions: swap, / , /usr , /usr/local ,
>and /home. UNIX typically is setup with swap, / , /usr , /usr/local , /var ,
Depends on your variant. It sounds like you're familiar with Solaris or
some other recent SVR4 beastie..
The SVR4 designers always talk like theirs is the UNIX to end all UNIXen,
but I'm sure there's plenty of Linuxers who'd disagree with that....
HTH,
Chris
--
It's boring being a program when your only job is inserting a random .sig.
Muggins thinks I've put his .sig here, won't he be surprised...
From: Jeff Fisher <j...@kcrg.com>
Subject: Re: File Structure
Date: 1996/08/07
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.91.960807010411.6831A-100000@mail.kcrg.com>#1/1
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On Tue, 6 Aug 1996, Chris Tatnall wrote:
Could be the start of a religious war here, but here goes.....
> Date: Tue, 6 Aug 1996 17:51:46 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Chris Tatnall <c.r.tatn...@larc.nasa.gov>
> To: linux-ad...@vger.rutgers.edu
> Subject: File Structure
>
> I was recently talking to an actual UNIX sysadmin about how to determine
> which files go into which directories, knowing that these conventions can
> be very important with some software, especially general UNIX software that
> is not particularly made for Linux. For example, he warned me that leaving
> the /var directory in the root partition could produce problems when I set
> up printing because overflows could overwrite my root software; additionally
> he mentioned that typically apps. should be installed in /opt, not in
> /usr/local as per the (RedHat) Linux instructions. I light of all this, I
> am wondering if there are any sysadmins that can confirm or deny the
> necessity of strictly adhering to UNIX conventions in Linux. The RedHat
> distribution tells me to setup five partitions: swap, / , /usr , /usr/local ,
> and /home. UNIX typically is setup with swap, / , /usr , /usr/local , /var ,
> and /opt at the very minimum (/home is usually a subdir. of
> /usr/local/export). Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Personally, I only leave what the system need to come up single-user
on the root partition. SunOS tries to break this by linking /lib/ to
/usr/lib. This past weekend we had major problems when a /usr
partition went away. (There's not alot left in /sbin if /usr is gone)
The partitioning scheme I'm partial to is a /, /usr, /home, /var, and
/tmp partition. This seems to keep the root partition clean. Since we
don't use nfs, we don't need to use /usr/local.
I prefer not to use /opt, unless a package really wants to go there.
/usr/local seems to work fine so far for me. I started out on SunOS
4.x, so I tend to prefer that type of layout (except for the
/usr/share and /usr/export stuff.)
>From what I've seen in my limited experience, each flavor of UNIX
is going to have it's own quirks on how the file system is set
up.
---------------
Jeff Fisher Gazette MIS
j...@kcrg.com Cedar Rapids, IA, US
Contrary to popular belief, Unix is user friendly. It just happens to be
very selective about who it decides to make friends with.
From: "Eric J. Peabody" <peab...@primus.bnserve.com>
Subject: Re: File Structure
Date: 1996/08/07
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On Tue, 6 Aug 1996, Chris Tatnall wrote:
> I was recently talking to an actual UNIX sysadmin about how to determine
> which files go into which directories, knowing that these conventions can
> be very important with some software, especially general UNIX software that
> is not particularly made for Linux. For example, he warned me that leaving
> the /var directory in the root partition could produce problems when I set
> up printing because overflows could overwrite my root software;
Not really overwrite, but it can fill up your root file system making
other processes fail that also need to write to the root file system like
syslogd.
>additionally
> he mentioned that typically apps. should be installed in /opt, not in
> /usr/local as per the (RedHat) Linux instructions.
This person must be a Sun bigot. Other versions of Unix use other
places for software packages. For example, IBM uses /usr/lpp for
'licensed program products'. /usr/local is a long standing tradition for
locally installed applications. Nothing wrong with using it at all.
Any decently written piece of software will let you install it any place
you want.
There are some good guidelines for what should be in separate partions.
The best rule of thumb is that setting up a separate partition puts a
limit of the filesystem's disk usage. For example, if /home is in its
own partition, users cannot as easily fill up system space. The same
thing goes for /var. /tmp is another possible candidate. /usr and
/usr/local might be split out separately.
Eric Peabody
From: Kevin M Bealer <kmb...@psu.edu>
Subject: Re: File Structure
Date: 1996/08/07
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On Tue, 6 Aug 1996, Chris Tatnall wrote:
> I was recently talking to an actual UNIX sysadmin about how to determine
> which files go into which directories, knowing that these conventions can
> be very important with some software, especially general UNIX software that
> is not particularly made for Linux. For example, he warned me that leaving
> the /var directory in the root partition could produce problems when I set
> up printing because overflows could overwrite my root software; additionally
> he mentioned that typically apps. should be installed in /opt, not in
> /usr/local as per the (RedHat) Linux instructions. I light of all this, I
> am wondering if there are any sysadmins that can confirm or deny the
> necessity of strictly adhering to UNIX conventions in Linux. The RedHat
> distribution tells me to setup five partitions: swap, / , /usr , /usr/local ,
> and /home. UNIX typically is setup with swap, / , /usr , /usr/local , /var ,
> and /opt at the very minimum (/home is usually a subdir. of
> /usr/local/export). Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
> ****************************************************************
> Chris Tatnall
> GWU/NASA JIAFS Program
> (757) 864-8608
> c.r.tatn...@larc.nasa.gov
> ****************************************************************
Note that you could add "most of the time" before any of the
following statements....
You can put the entire mess in one partition, and everything
will function correctly. Standard Linux stuff doesn't use /opt
yet (but it's going to add that soon). However usually ...
The information that fluctuates, ie /var is kept seperate
because writing to the disk increases the chances of disk
errors. You wouldn't want your kernel overwritten because the
power went down when syslogd was writing to /var/log/messages.
/home also fluctuates. I think the rationale for seperating it
out follows that of var, plus if a user fills the entire /home
partition the system should not crash because of it. Since
users stay mostly in /home, it is good to fix the size of home,
by making it a seperate partition.
Usually /usr and / are seperate. The / directory is different
for each system, but several systems could share the /usr
directory. Since / isn't shared, (and more importantly to
minimize problems), / is kept small, only containing stuff that
is necessary to boot, mount partitions, start daemons, emergency
stuff, the kernel, /etc and so on. Also note /usr is often the
largest. (mine is 300 or so MB, more than all my other
partitions and my 100 MB dos/w95 partition together).
/opt is just like /usr except /opt is for non-standardized
stuff, often proprietory stuff might install under /opt. The
Linux FSSTD (file system standard) used /usr/local for this, but
the FSSTD will soon be replaced by the FHS, which is not Linux
specific per se.
Accord to the FHS: (afaik)
The /opt is for after-market type packages, for example
Wordperfect for Unix or Netscape. /usr/local is for
system-specific stuff ... for example any scripts the sysadmin
writes should go there. /usr/ (except for /usr/local) is for
standard Unix utilities. I interpret this to mean anything
which is packages by the same organization as the distribution
you are using. (Debian does things this way, and it seems to
work well).
------------>
I started out with one partition for the whole thing, and later
went to multiple, and much prefer multiple partitions. Mine
look like:
/tmp is a symbolic link to /var/tmp,
Filesystem 1024-blocks Used Available Capacity Mounted on
/dev/hda5 14607 9576 4277 69% /
/dev/hda6 19974 15558 3385 82% /home
/dev/hda7 19974 7486 11457 40% /var
/dev/hda8 320054 275531 27994 91% /usr
/dev/hda1 107104 59120 47984 55% /msdos
Generally speaking, /home /usr and / aren't as large as I would
like them to be. /var could be smaller, but I did have it
overrun when I had something or other misconfigured.
/usr gets used for other things. I put a symbolic link /dump
which holds things like downloaded kernels, mirroring, and tar
files. Thus, it is possible to adjust if you don't have things
exactly as you want them on the first shot.
__kmb...@psu.edu_______________Debian/GNU__1.1___Linux__2.0.11___
We believe that man is essentially good. It's only his behavior
that lets him down. This is the fault of society. Society is
the fault of conditions. Conditions are the fault of society.
-- Steve Turner, "Creed"
From: Jim Brown <jimbr...@unix.asb.com>
Subject: Re: File Structure
Date: 1996/08/07
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> For example, he warned me that leaving
> the /var directory in the root partition could produce problems when I set
> up printing because overflows could overwrite my root software;
Not really overwrite but bring your machine to a stop due to the root
partition being full and unable to write to log files anbd such
> he mentioned that typically apps. should be installed in /opt, not in
> /usr/local as per the (RedHat) Linux instructions.
/opt is a Sun thing its for optional software ie third party software
/usr/local is more of a unix standard for local programs ie optional
> am wondering if there are any sysadmins that can confirm or deny the
> necessity of strictly adhering to UNIX conventions in Linux.
Depends if you are just going to use it your self there really is no
need to follow unix conventions since you would mostly know your own
system. But if you will have users that do not know much thats a
different story.
> distribution tells me to setup five partitions: swap, / , /usr , /usr/local ,
> and /home. UNIX typically is setup with swap, / , /usr , /usr/local , >/var ,
/var is good because that is where most of the system logs end up.
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