not a big enough root partition for mail spool?

[pedro687]

hi all, i just installed rh7.1 with the following partitions/sizes:
/ 1.5 gigs
/home 9 gigs
/usr 7 gigs
/archive 2.5 gigs

this machine will be a mail server and will host a few web pages. i'm worried that /var/spool/mail will quickly fill up my root partition. i guess i should have created a separate /var partition.

is there any way to solve this problem without repartitioning? can i simply mount /var to another partition (ie. /usr) ???

thanks, pedro

[Craig McPherson]

You really, really, really need a seperate /var partition on a machine that you'll be using as a mail server. Otherwise, anybody can DoS your box simply by sending you a lot of e-mail. If /var is on the root partition, a mail bomb will destroy your ability to log in, start programs, and do much to fix your system other than booting from a rescue disk and cleaning up the mess.

The best thing I'd recommend would be to (if it'll fit) move everything from /usr onto / and not have a seperate /usr partition, then use some of the space where that partition was for a /var. Or simply shrink the /usr and put a /var in the freed-up space. Or get rid of /archive and put your /var there.

It's possibly to symlink all of /var or part of /var somewhere else, but I can't say it's a terribly good idea. It's best to get your partitions right instead of trying to work around a bad system.